Paradise Destroyed: Catastrophe and Citizenship in the French Caribbean Unavailable

In the twenty-five years since Hurricane Andrew devastated South Florida in 1992, historians, when confronted with questions that cannot be answered satisfactorily by utilizing traditional categories of analysis, have turned to the effects of natural hazards to explain the outcome of historical processes. Unfortunately for Martinique and Guadeloupe, the years under study (the 1890s through the 1910s) had no shortage of natural and man-made catastrophes that Church could employ to address the intertwined issues of race, class, nationality, citizenship, and colonialism (he includes a mine collapse in France for comparison’s sake). In 1890, the major cities on both islands were destroyed by fires exacerbated by drought, and the following year, Martinique took a direct hit from a devastating hurricane. Later in the decade, a worldwide economic crisis led to a decline in the price of sugar causing unemployment and rising prices, which, in turn, fueled resentment and political unrest throughout...