From Christopher Columbus to the modern vacationer, outside observers have looked upon the Caribbean as a paradise on earth. However, behind the images of sea, sun, sand, and sex are the scars of a troubled history. Oruno Lara presents the story of territories and populations subdued over the past five centuries by a brutal system of social and economic exploitation - a painful heritage shared by generations of Caribbeans. Poets and novelists from the Caribbean sometimes evoke the image of the "Medusa of History," who freezes time and perpetuates the cycle of oppression. Slavery was...