In Radical Moves, Lara Putnam presents a compelling historical analysis of Afro-Caribbean labor migration between the mid-nineteenth and the mid-twentieth centuries, the unprecedented sociopolitical barriers to that migration that were erected across the circum-Caribbean in the early twentieth century, and the radical transformations in understandings of race, nation, empire, and citizenship that occurred as a result. More specifically, Putnam draws on a diverse array of primary and secondary sources (newspaper articles, consular posts, oral histories, scholarly publications, etc.) from throughout the Western Hemisphere in order to trace three interrelated phenomena that she argues significantly shaped the lives of black Caribbeanites during this period: circum-Caribbean labor migration, nascent regimes of state mobility-control, and the various black internationalist ideologies and cultural forms that emerged as Afro-descendant migrants engaged with each other—as well as with nonblack coworkers, employers, and officials—across national boundaries. In the process, the author paints a nuanced picture not just of the high-profile black leaders and political movements that typically dominate accounts of the transnational black community during this era (e.g., Marcus Garvey and Garveyism), but also of the everyday working-class women and men for whom these leaders and movements purported to speak, and of the broader spectrum of cultural forms and institutions—music, religion, the press, etc.—with which they navigated their increasingly hostile and restrictive world.

After outlining her main arguments in the book’s introduction, Putnam turns in chapter 1 to an examination of the migratory circuits established by black British West Indians in the mid-to-late nineteenth century. Her primary goal is to highlight the relative freedom that these migrants had to traverse the circum-Caribbean before the imposition of the draconian mobility-control policies that she discusses in later chapters. She also demonstrates that while Afro-Caribbean migrant workers often faced a great deal of abuse at the hands of employers and state officials, they were actually better protected from injustice than their local counterparts because of their British citizenship; at this point in time, British colonial officials found it politically expeditious to defend their subjects’ rights regardless of skin color, and they thus intervened on behalf of British Caribbean emigrants at least some of the time.

In chapter 2 Putnam explores the spectrum of popular religious traditions—from formal Christian denominations to West African-derived ritual complexes—that working-class Afro-Caribbean migrants drew upon in their efforts to make sense of their highly mobile lives. The author argues that while both non-black observers and middle-class black political and intellectual leaders frequently vilified the latter of these belief systems for their supposed atavism, they were in fact resolutely modern, cosmopolitan responses to the pressures of migration and served as a kind of cultural and spiritual lingua franca for Afro-Caribbean migrant workers throughout the region. The transnational connections that such traditions facilitated, in turn, contributed to their latent potential to inspire more radical forms of racial alliance, a potential which black internationalist political leaders themselves ironically failed to recognize.

Chapter 3 presents an examination of the barriers to Afro-Caribbean migration that were erected in the 1920s and 1930s, as nation-states across the circum-Caribbean responded to global economic crisis, populist labor agitation, and eugenicist thought by implementing stringent immigration restrictions and workplace quotas designed to protect native workers by keeping foreign—and especially black—workers out. British colonial officials, meanwhile, had by this point lost all interest in defending the rights of their West Indian subjects, and they therefore neither challenged the discriminatory entrance policies of neighboring states, nor supported the efforts of Afro-Caribbeanites to establish their own (equally discriminatory) restrictions on Asian and Middle Eastern labor migration to the British Caribbean.

In chapter 4, Putnam turns to a discussion of the transnational black press, arguing that the close relationships between black newspapers published across the circum-Caribbean ensured that Afro-Caribbeanites throughout the region were able both to recognize the systematic and interconnected nature of individual instances of racial discrimination, and to dialogue with each other about this discrimination across national borders. Indeed, she contends that such publications created an alternative black public sphere where everyday Afro-Caribbean readers could critically debate the meanings of race and racism in a rapidly changing world, acknowledge the failures of British officials, and discuss nascent strategies for securing greater respect, autonomy, and eventually independence for the transnational black community (a social formation that was itself partly the product of the exchanges facilitated by these periodicals).

Chapter 5, then, presents an investigation of the music and dance practices of working-class Afro-Caribbean youths throughout the circum-Caribbean. One of Putnam’s primary goals in this chapter is to demonstrate the transnational roots of several of the African diasporic popular musical styles typically associated with individual nation-states, such as African American jazz. She also examines the conflicted responses of middle-class black political and intellectual leaders to these music and dance traditions, noting that many were torn between celebrating the talent and success of young Afro-Caribbean performers and decrying the supposed lasciviousness on display in working-class dances. Ultimately, however, she contends that music and dance were just as meaningful a form of engagement with the highly dynamic, transnational world that Afro-Caribbeanites occupied during this period as were the political philosophies espoused by more prominent black community leaders.

In chapter 6, Putnam discusses the waves of return migration occasioned by the closing of circum-Caribbean borders to Afro-Caribbean travelers. She notes, for example, that local island elites and British colonial officials alike sought to take responsibility for as few black returnees as possible, and they thus instituted strict reentrance policies even for dispossessed British West Indian migrants with nowhere else to go. The author then analyzes the central roles that such returnees played in the radical religious movements (especially Rastafarianism) and populist labor uprisings that swept the British Caribbean in the 1930s and 1940s, arguing that they drew on their experiences of both cosmopolitan intra-racial exchange and racial discrimination abroad to craft spiritual and secular responses to the economic instability, systematic racism, and colonial abuse that threatened their communities; according to Putnam, moreover, these movements were key frontrunners in the struggle against British colonialism in the Caribbean. Finally, in the book’s conclusion, the author reiterates her main arguments about the need to historicize the connections and barriers that structured intra-diasporic movement and exchange during this era, the importance of considering everyday people and popular culture in addition to more high-profile political and intellectual leaders and ideologies, and the implications of this particular slice of history for later understandings of race, nation, and citizenship.

As Putnam notes in the introduction to Radical Moves, scholars from many disciplines have increasingly turned to transnational frameworks in their efforts to better understand the intricate patterns of movement and interchange that have shaped the histories of African diasporic communities, and her work is a testament to the rich insights that such frameworks can generate when employed rigorously and meticulously. Indeed, Putnam paints a remarkably thorough picture of the multifaceted lives of Afro-Caribbean migrant workers throughout the circum-Caribbean between the mid-nineteenth and the mid-twentieth centuries, taking into account the motivations for, encounters engendered by, and barriers erected against their sojourns, as well as the wide range of political, intellectual, religious, and musical systems and structures they developed in response to their experiences, and the implications of all of these interrelated phenomena for later processes of decolonization and post-independence nation-building. Folklorists, ethnomusicologists, and other students of popular culture in particular will appreciate the author’s clear emphasis on everyday Afro-Caribbeanites and the wide range of cultural forms that they employed in their efforts to find meaning and stability in their ever-changing lives, an emphasis that is well served by her engaging writing style; throughout the book, Putnam tacks between captivating snapshots of individual people and incisive analyses of the broader structures and trends that both impacted and, in turn, were impacted by them.

In this reviewer’s opinion, there is little with which to find fault in Putnam’s work. Scholars of African diasporic popular music might, for instance, find her treatment of Afro-Caribbean music and dance to be somewhat lacking in musical detail; her argument that these traditions formed a crucial part of Afro-Caribbean youths’ responses to the challenges of migration and racial injustice could have been supplemented with analyses of how musicians themselves addressed these issues (e.g., in their lyrics), while her claim that Afro-Caribbean migrants’ tastes influenced the development of Harlem jazz would be more convincing if it were supported by discussions of specific songs or stylistic elements that reflected those influences. Also, though Putnam takes care to point out the differences that existed between the societies of the eastern and western Caribbean during this period, she tends to focus primarily on Trinidad and Jamaica and says relatively little about the other islands from which Afro-Caribbean migrant workers originated. Overall, however, Radical Moves is a painstakingly researched, masterfully crafted, and extremely insightful book, and it comes highly recommended to students and scholars from all disciplinary backgrounds who are interested in circum-Caribbean and/or African diasporic history, politics, and popular culture.

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[Review length: 1488 words • Review posted on May 6, 2014]