The essays in this book examine the social evolution of the colonial Caribbean in the period between the end of slavery and the middle of the twentieth century. While political and economic changes are not ignored, the focus is on social and ethnic groups, classes, men and women, and their interrelations, and on the development of cultural and intellectual traditions. Several essays deal with Trinidad and Guyana, the region's most ethnically diverse societies, but others take a wider perspective. Most of the contributors are firmly multi-disciplinary in their approach. Among its goals, the book tries to show how the class-based, multi-ethnic and multi-religious societies of the modern Caribbean emerged from the ruins of the slave system; the evolution of gender relations and family structure; systems of opposition to colonial rule; and how a rich culture and a lively intellectual tradition developed despite the constraints of depressed economies and colonial politics.

The Colonial Caribbean in Transition is a general study that seeks to explain broad social and cultural developments in the region in the long period between the 1830s and the 1940s. It combines social history with the cultural studies approach, including literature as a part of culture. These are areas much less researched than political, colonial/imperial, and economic developments, which have been the main focus of the literature. The essays also combine general, wide-ranging analyses with the case study approach.

The volume is inspired by the life and work of Donald Wood, Reader Emeritus in History at the University of Sussex, Britain. Wood's Trinidad in Transition: The Years After Slavery (1968) is unquestionablya classic of Caribbean historiography and his approach to social history has served as a model for history writing on Caribbean society in the nineteenth and early twentieth centuries. He has been the mentor, guide and friend of countless men and women engaged in researching the history of the region.