The Caribbean is one of the most crucial geographic, political, and cultural sites on earth for any accurate, coherent, and historically conscious understanding of the New World. It is the location of the first slaves brought to the Americas, it is the location of the first capitalist mass agricultural production sites, and is the location of the first Greek styled (ala France) democracy to be born in this hemisphere. We will use economic and political documentary analysis and will carefully avoid the myths of ‘race’ often misused to understand the rise of the corporate slave trade and misused to explain the rise of mercantilism/capitalism. You will practice objective, analytical thinking and writing--your own documentary writing, from evidence. The Caribbean in this way can be fully understood for what it is: the origin, nature, and course of the modern age.