Raymond T. Smith

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In 1958 or 1959 I was asked by the Royal Institute of International Affairs in London to write a general book on British Guiana.  I readily agreed to do so in spite of the fact that I was about to leave the Caribbean to take up a post at the University of Ghana in West Africa.  The bulk of the book was written during the first half of 1959, in Jamaica and then in Ghana.  Things were changing rapidly in British Guiana during this period and then even more rapidly after the book was published.  I returned to Jamaica from Ghana early in 1962, just before publication.  Although the book was favourably received there were notable exceptions.  Sir Jock Campbell, Chairman of Booker Brothers, a company that had subsidized research in British Guiana through the Commonwealth Foundation's grant to the Institute of Social and Economic Research at the University of the West Indies, wrote a strong letter complaining that I had accused him, and Bookers, of insincerity in their attempts to introduce a more humane form of capitalism in the management of their sugar enterprises.  Mr. Forbes Burnham (not yet President of course) complained to me that I had depicted him as exploiting race as a factor in politics while ignoring Dr. Jagan's appeals to race.  The Demerara Bauxite Company was unhappy with my descriptions of racial segregation at their mining towns, and some of the readers of the manuscript in London objected to my characterizations of the English class system and of Britain's activities during the Suez crisis.

The Royal Institute of International Affairs has kindly allowed me to post the book here as it appeared in 1962.  It provides suitable background reading for the discussion of the events of the later 1960s that is presented in the section headed "Guyanese Politics" and of more recent events in Guyana.   When I have time I intend to annotate the text of British Guiana and provide discussions in the light of subsequent events, as well as bringing some of the material up-to-date.

The full reference to the work is as follows, and I am pleased to make full acknowledgment of the copyright of this book, which remains with the Royal Institute of International Affairs, London.

Raymond T. Smith 1962.  British Guiana.  Issued under the auspices of the Royal Institute of International Affairs: Oxford University Press, London, New York, Toronto. © Royal Institute of International Affairs and © Oxford University Press 1962.  Reprinted 1964 by OUP.  Reprinted 1980 by Greenwood Press, Westport, Connecticut, USA.  ISBN 0-313-22142-1.  Reproduced here by permission of Oxford University Press and the Royal Institute of International Affairs.

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