Book Report, Beyond Massa.

Dr. John F Campbell, renowned scholar and accomplished lecturer at the University of the West Indies St. Augustine campus earned his BA and MPhil degrees in History at the UWI. Furthering his educational career he went on to receive his second MPhil and his PhD from Cambridge University, UK. Since then he has been involved in teaching contemporary Caribbean civilization since 2001 and has collect quite a few awards for excellence in his line of work. This report will be focusing on his latest published work “Beyond Massa - Sugar Management in the British Caribbean, 1770-1834”, in alignment with the teachings of the Caribbean Civilization course in which Dr. Campbell also coordinates.

Along with everything else on this earth as time passes by evolution takes place even within the realm of History and its literary contents. This evolution of history is termed ‘Revisionism’ and this is one of the main themes that can be identified within this book. Another main idea discussed by Dr. Campbell was ‘Human Resource Management’ which gives an interesting and slightly different perspective of the relationship between the enslaved Africans and the white plantation owners and by extension managers. Another unique aspect of ‘Beyond Massa’ is that it takes a rarely followed path in highlighting gender issues within the Caribbean during the slavery era and gives the female dimension a spotlight in which was well overdue. In this book Dr. Campbell focuses on the territory of Jamaica while under the rule of the British and more specifically the Golden Grove Estate and the concept of the Absentee Manager (Simon Taylor) and his difficulties managing the estate through his letters with the owner (Chaloner Arcedekne). These themes and ideas within the book will be critically analyzed within this report using literature similar to the source to observe differences and similarities to evaluate the validity of Dr. Campbell’s work in “Beyond Massa - Sugar Management in the British...