southwesthumanities.com
Zophia Edwards, Fueling Development: How Black Radical Trade Unionism Transformed Trinidad and Tobago (Duke University Press, 2025)
Another excellent book indexed by Southwest Humanities is Zophia Edwards's Fueling Development: How Black Radical Trade Unionism Transformed Trinidad and Tobago (Duke University Press, 2025). In this detailed and crucial study, Edwards offers a compelling reinterpretation of Trinidad and Tobago’s path to social and economic progress—especially surprising given its reliance on oil and gas and its colonial legacy. Through extensive archival research and a Black radical political economy perspective, she uncovers the vital role of what she terms “liberation unionism”—a working-class, multiracial, and inclusive labor movement deeply rooted in Pan-African, anti-imperial, and diasporic principles.
