Inverting the racist hierarchy of 19th century British imperial thought, 20th century political activists in the British West Indies used the concepts of liberal ideology to claim that the subject people of the West Indies constituted a Creole nation that deserved the right to govern itself. This study of the origins and major figures of Creole nationalism, Trinidadian C.L.R. James, Norman Manley of Jamaica and James's student Eric Williams of Trinidad, considers both its limitations and its possibilities.
