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A Guide to Source Materials for the Study of Barbados History, 1627-1834. By Jerome S. Handler. New Castle, Del: Oak Knoll Press, 2002. 222 pp. $29.95. ISBN 1-58456-064-9.
A testament to the value of Jerome Handler's work as a Caribbean studies archivist is the reprinting of his original Guide to Source Materials for the Study of Barbados History (1971) in 2002. As the U.S. academy increasingly explores the field of cultural studies, it is not difficult to realize that the Caribbean region generally goes more unnoticed than other marginalized regions and/or groups, especially those that perhaps possess more controversial prominence than the unassumingstring of islands between Florida and Venezuela. Thus the republishing of Handler's impressive bibliographical guide is welcome to those interested in Barbadian and Caribbean history, society, politics, economies, and culture.
In the preface to his guide, Handler acknowledges Barbados's importance in British colonial history, as it was once "the richest of Britain's Caribbean possessions" (vii) and to this day is known to many as "Little England." Beyond Barbados's importance with regard to this colonial history is its importance with regard to understanding the British West Indies as a whole....