Volume 31, Number 19 · December 6, 1984
Embarrassing Colony
By Richard M. Morse
Puerto Rico: A Colonial Experiment
by Raymond Carr
A Twentieth Century Fund Study, New York University Press/Vintage, 477 pp., $25.00; $9.95 (paper)
There is some irony to the subtitle of Raymond Carr's book, 'a colonial experiment.' Not long ago many Puerto Ricans believed that the island's commonwealth status represented a 'compact' acknowledging Puerto Rico's cultural identity and its right to self-determination. Today, in the Decolonization Committee of the United Nations, the United States still regularly resists being held accountable as Puerto Rico's 'colonial' mentor. But in this instance the exercise of American world power requires more than the usual disclaimer; and the world 'experiment' implies conditions of scrutiny and control that scarcely apply to the case of Puerto Rico, which Carr chronicles as a history of mutual misperception, selective inattention, and abdicated responsibility.
Review, 3562 words
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