Puerto Rico: A National History

Meléndez-Badillo, Jorell. Puerto Rico: A National History. 2024. 312p. ISBN 9780691231273. 

Puerto Rico: A National History provides a panoramic history of Puerto Rico, from pre-Columbian times to the present day. It explores the island's history, shaped by conquest and resistance, and the centuries-long process of crafting and negotiating complex ideas about nationhood. The narrative gives voice to the archipelago’s people, while offering a lens through which to understand the political, economic, and social challenges confronting them today.

Puerto Rico: A National History sheds light on the vibrant cultures of the archipelago before the arrival of Columbus, and captures the full sweep of Puerto Rico’s turbulent history in the centuries that followed. It details events ranging from the first indigenous insurrection against colonial rule in 1511 to the establishment of the Commonwealth in 1952. The contemporary period and the intertwined, though unequal, histories of the archipelago and the continental United States are deftly portrayed. 

This is an engaging, sometimes personal, and consistently surprising history of colonialism, revolt, and the creation of a national identity, offering new perspectives on Puerto Rico, the Caribbean, and the Atlantic world more broadly.