This collection of essays explores the development of public health policies and institutions in the Caribbean. It places this history in the context of patterns in the larger "tropical" colonial world. In the Caribbean, responses to disease and the public health crises of the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries coincided with the transition from slavery to freedom. Focusing on the late nineteenth to the early twentieth centuries, the essays in this collection explore the influence of imperial ideas and local actions on public health in the Caribbean. They show the impact of race and gender ideologies and the significance of imperial strategic concerns on urban public health, responses to disease, and the development of health infrastructure. A pioneering consideration of the importance of public health matters in the colonial and post-colonial Caribbean, this collection is also useful in situating the Caribbean story within the orbit of health and disease in the colonial African context. Individually and collectively, the chapters in this volume will serve as a great starting point for classroom discussions of Caribbean history. Steven Palmer, Canada Research Chair in History of International Health, Department of History University of Windsor

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