the region from the turn of the century onwards, notably in Cuba, Haiti and Santo Domingo. This was the context in which the movements for self-determination worked, complicated everywhere by racial prejudice and disparities in the ownership of property. In the years following the Second World War, examined in Volume V, the islands and their immediate mainland neighbours have sought a variety of solutions to the problems which arise from societies asserting political autonomy while possessing economies dependent on overseas markets where their goods are protected from competition. Puerto Rico became the ‘Estado Libre’, a Commonwealth; the French-speaking islands became departments of France; the Dutch-speaking islands, prior to the independence of Suriname, all became part of the Kingdom of the Netherlands; the British islands first flirted with a Federation, then became independent states separately; other states, following periods of military dictatorship, have pursued the path of socialist revolution. Currently, both in the islands and on the continent, there is a growing tendency for policy to be guided by regionalism, by the impulse towards association and co-operation, towards the formation of trading blocs, initially prompted by geographical propinquity. History of the Project The Working Group convened by the Director-General of UNESCO in Paris in 1981 to begin work on the project of writing a General History of the Caribbean – separately from the General History of Latin America. In conjunction with the Working Group and broad consultation carried out by the Regional Offices in Latin America and the Caribbean, a Drafting Committee was established by the Director-General. This Drafting Committee included 19 scholars and researchers from a range of places, two-thirds of whom were from the Caribbean, including Martinique, Santa Lucia, Trinidad and Tobago, Haiti, Barbados and Cuba. The six-volume History was officially launched in 1993 and is expected to be completed by the end of 2011. The Volumes Volume I: Autochthonous Societies Edited by Jalil Sued-Badillo Volume II: New Societies: The Caribbean in the Long Sixteenth Century Edited by P. C. Emmer and German Carrera Damas Volume III: The Slave Societies of the Caribbean Edited by Franklin W. Knight Volume IV: The Long Nineteenth Century: Nineteenth-Century Transformations Edited by Jalil Sued-Badillo Volume V: The Caribbean in the Twentieth Century Edited by Franklin W. Knight Volume VI: Methodology and Historiography of the Caribbean Edited by B.W. Higman References [1] Frederico Mayor, Director-General of UNESCO 1987-1999, Preface: The General History of the