100 Book Review






 Can the drive for world hegemony be, in the
 long run, compatible with the maintenance of
 democratic institutions in American life?

The answer to that question is, of course, "no," but the
limitations placed on the press, the campaign of official
"misinformation," the meager protest in the U. S. itself,
and the generally jingoistic reactions to the invasion
(even in the face of nearly unanimous international
objection and the condemning of the action as a
violation of the U. N. Charter in a General Assembly
vote of 108 to 9) suggest that perhaps nobody really
cares very much about democratic institutions any longer.
They also confirm the continued metropolitan policy of
condemning as dangerous and radical doctrines in the
colony,liberties, rights, and privileges commonly enjoyed
at home.

 Gordon K. Lewis is the "Dean" of social and political
analysts of the Caribbean. In more than 30 years of
strenuous research and publication, he has assembled
what is perhaps the most impressive record in English
in the field, with his ground-breaking Main Currents in
Caribbean Thought (1983) being the best study of its
kind available. Grenada: The Jewel Despoiled follows
closely on that work and is the contemporary manifestation
of the theme of the other: the Caribbean must be
conceived and governed in regional terms or it will
always be the backyard and/or garbage heap of empire,
no longer European colonies but North American encamp-
ments for capital and military investment. The Grenada
experience proves that, in times of the globalization
of the assembly line, the notion of national sovereignty
has become simply a figure of speech.

 Lewis' documentation of that process is impeccable,
with sources ranging from local gossip and commentary
to regional newspapers and journals, academic and
professional publications, and all available U. S. sources,
including the extensive book literature that has already
surfaced on Grenada. But what especially distinguishes
his work is the principled sense of outrage that Lewis
does not try to hide behind a cloak of academic sterility.
He examines Grenada not as a "murder story" but as an
act of betrayal, a Caribbean sell out: to gain favor on