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Analyzes social and economic challenges facing the Caribbean region. Examines colonialism's legacy, factors contributing to emigration, and social stratification. Emphasizes difficulties in self-determination created historically by externally introduced ideas, continuing U.S. hegemony, and cultural, racial, and ethnic differences. Provides maps of the region. (CH)

For several decades there has been extensive migration from the small island states of the South Pacific and the eastern Caribbean to metropolitan countries, resulting in absolute population decline in some states and new social, economic and political relationships between these island regions and distant worlds. Early research on the consequences for island development of return migration and remittances dwelt upon the unproductive nature of expenditures and the various problems return migration and remittances cause. Questioning this view, a new conceptualization of the influences of migration, circulation and remittances on recipient families, communities and societies in the island states of the South Pacific and the Caribbean is presented. Regional similarities and differences are recognized, yet commonalities of island microstates' experiences emerge. Remittances are a very significant private transfer of capital and return migrants represent people endowed with human capital, capable of enriching the social and cultural capital stocks of their island communities. In both insular regions, the consolidation of transnational linkages emphasizes the significance of diaspora relations for migrant households at home and abroad and offers some prospects for sustainable development, beyond those offered solely by domestic economic opportunities.

The adoption of flexible manufacturing may proceed in a sequence of increasing utilization of flexible labor cells, flexible machining cells and other plant operational changes. Data regarding the use of such flexible production arrangements are gathered in the nonelectrical machinery industry of Illinois, Michigan, Wisconsin, Ohio and Indiana. The results indicate limited capacities for flexible manufacturing in these midwestern states. The social, technical and management requirements of the adoption of flexible manufacturing are discussed.

By Paula L. Aymer. Westport, CT, and London: Praeger, 1997. Pp. 158. DENNIS CONWAY Indiana University, Bloomington This theoretically thoughtful treatise on the experiences of eastern Caribbean women who are [...]

Economy and Environment in the Caribbean: Barbados and the Wind-wards in the Late 1800s. By Bonham C. Richardson. Jamaica: The Press, University of the West Indies; and Gainesville: University Press [...]

The Urban Caribbean: Transition to the New Global Economy. Edited by Alejandro Portes, Carlos Dore-Cabral and Patricia Landolt. Baltimore and London: The Johns Hopkins University Press, 1997. xvii + 260 [...]