Eric Williams, Selwyn Ryan, History in Action, Vol. 2 No.1, April 2011

ISBN: 978-976-640-207-5

Price: US$75 (s)

Eric Williams was undoubtedly one of the most outstanding Caribbean personalities of the last century. That is so because, at many levels, he was as much the author of history in the historiographical sense as its maker: more than ordinarily, he both wrote and made history. Williams was the author of several important publications on Trinidad and Tobago and the Caribbean, and Capitalism and Slavery, for example, first published in 1944, remains one of the most influential historical treatises on the region.

As Trinidad and Tobago’s chief minister from 1956 to 1959, its first premier from 1959 to 1962, and its first prime minister from 1962, he dominated the country’s politics until his death in 1981. He was unquestionably, the principal figure and force in the shaping of the governance and development of Trinidad and Tobago. Further, as a Caribbean head of government, he contributed significantly towards, and was at times key to the development of Caribbean nationalism and the relations among Caribbean states. At times, he also exerted considerable influence on relations between the Caribbean and the wider world. Given the many hats he wore and the many roles he played, Williams would have enunciated, written and done much for others to mull on during and after his lifetime.

Much has been and continues to be written about his life, both in academe and politics. But history is always the work of hindsight, and adopts new forms with the passage of time and, quite often, the availability of new materials. During his lifetime, the greater part of the scholarly response to Williams was centred around evaluation of his historical writings and their effect on the historiography per se. Along with such evaluations, were those works aimed primarily at assessing him as a politician and administrator. Such assessments, whether negative, positive or neutral, resulted naturally from the fact that he was a head of government, the leader of a political party, and was entitled to adoration or blame. Often, however, Williams’s reading of history was incorporated as an explanation of his politics, including for example, his treatment of issues related to religion, race and class. Little effort was made to pursue a full and comprehensive history of Williams. This was a void to which Williams responded with the publication of his autobiography, Inward Hunger: The Education of a Prime Minister (1969). It was a brilliantly written text which allowed him to set the tone for how he was to be viewed and understood: a masterly stroke of historiographical control from which successive historians have not managed to liberate themselves, despite their claims to the contrary. In the text, Williams alluded to the poverty endured by his family during his childhood and the prejudice he had experienced while at Oxford. After his passing, a number of new publications attempted to probe and explain Williams’s dynamic, multifaceted, and at times seemingly troubled and complex personality. The effect of the autobiography was seen in the work of Ken Boodhoo, Eric Williams the Man and the Leader (1986), and Ramesh Deosaran, Eric Williams: The Man, His Ideas, and His Politics (1981). At best, these are perfunctory attempts at psycho-history, with their explanation of Williams rooted primarily in his rather calculated explanation of himself.

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