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British-Controlled Trinidad and Venezuela: A History of Economic Interests and Subversions, 1830-1962. Kelvin Singh. Kingston: University of the West Indies Press, 2010. xiii + 294 pp. (Paper US$ 44.00)
Analyses of the political, economic, and diplomatic relations between two countries are the traditional stuffof international history. Kelvin Singh of the History Program at the University of West Indies, St. Augustine, Trinidad has, however, taken a unique approach in his study of bilateral relations between Trinidad and Venezuela. This book is a study of how a British colony struggled to assert its presence with an independent state. Singh emphasizes that Venezuela must be seen as a Caribbean country and not just a South American country or a major oil-producing nation situated within the constellation of the United States. His insights are undergirded by impressive archival research in Trinidad, Venezuela, the United Kingdom, and the United States.
At their closest point, Trinidad and Venezuela are separated by only thirteen kilometers (about eight miles) of seawater. The two nations share the Gulf of Paria, which has significant oil deposits; and Venezuela's great Orinoco River, which drains deep into northern South America, exits in front of Trinidad. As Singh notes, for the British, Trinidad was to Venezuela as Gibraltar was to Spain. As the preeminent global power of the nineteenth century, Britain used its control of Trinidad...