Arising from Bondage is an epic story of the struggle of the Indo-Caribbean people. From the 1830's through World War I hundreds of thousands of indentured laborers were shipped from India to the Caribbean and settled in the former British, Dutch, French and Spanish colonies. Like their predecessors, the African slaves, they labored on the sugar estates. Unlike the Africans their status was ambiguous--not actually enslaved yet not entirely free--they fought mightily to achieve power in their new home. Today in the English-speaking Caribbean alone there are one million people of Indian descent and they form the majority in Guyana and Trinidad and Tobago.

This study, based on official documents and archives, as well as previously unpublished material from British, Indian and Caribbean sources, fills a major gap in the history of the Caribbean, India, Britain and European colonialism. It also contributes powerfully to the history of diaspora and migration.

Mary Seacole's remarkable life began in Jamaica, where she was born a 'free person,' the daughter of a black mother and white Scottish army officer. Ron Ramdin - who, like Seacole, was born in the Caribbean and emigrated to the UK - tells the remarkable story of a woman celebrated today as a pioneering nurse. But Seacole's time in the Crimea, for which she is best-known, was only the pinnacle of a life of adventure and travel. Refused permission to serve as an army nurse, Seacole took the remarkable step of funding her own journey to the Crimean battlefront and there, in the face of sometimes harsh opposition, she established a hotel for wounded soldiers. Unlike Florence Nightingale - whose exploits saw her venerated as the 'lady with the lamp' for generations afterwards - Seacole cared for soldiers perilously close to the fighting. Her short-lived fame back in Britain was the work of soldiers and the press who campaigned to have her exploits acknowledged. Her book, The Wonderful Adventures of Mrs Seacole in Many Lands, became a bestseller. Then she was forgotten, dying 25-years later in obscurity, and unjustly written out of history for over a century.

This is the first comprehensive historical perspective on the relationship between Black workers and the changing patterns of Britain's labour needs. It places in an historical context the development of a small black presence in sixteenth-century Britain into the disadvantaged black working class of the 1980s. The book deals with the colonial labour institutions (slavery, indentureship and trade unionism) and the ideology underlying them and also considers the previously neglected role of the nineteenth-century Black radicals in British working-class struggles. Finally, the book examines the emergence of a Black radical ideology that has underpinned the twentieth-century struggles against unemployment, racial attacks and workplace grievances, among them employer and trade union racism.

A full understanding of Black and Asian history within the British contextis integral to achieving a truly multicultural Britain. In this landmark book, Ron Ramdin offers the first complete history of both the Black and Asian experience in Britain. Blacks and Asians have a long history in the British Isles. Ramdin illustrates this by covering a five hundred year period, from 1500 to the present day. He recounts the major historical episodes and covers all the major figures, including Ottobah Cugoano, William Cuffay, Henry Sylvester Williams, George Padmore, Mary Seacole, C.L.R. James, V.S. Naipaul, Sam Selvon, Walter Tull, Shirley Bassey, Bill Morris, Salman Rushdie, Hanif Kureshi, Diane Abbott and Bernie Grant. In bringing the largely hidden histories of these two immigrant communities to the forefront, Ron Ramdin's wide-ranging study challenges conventional histories of the British Isles. Reimaging Britain will lead to a reappraisal of how we write 'British' history in the future.

The first comprehensive biography of one of the best-loved singers of the last 100 years. In Ron Ramdin's absorbing work, Robeson springs to life again as a man of charisma and stature, and as an indomitable spirit in his battle against The House Un-American Activities Committee.