Jamaica, with much hoop-la and fanfare, celebrated its fiftieth anniversary as an independent nation, three years ago amidst festivities embellished by the stellar performance of our track and field athletes at the London Olympics. In reality, the ‘feel-good’ moment of 2012 was ‘but a fleeting illusion’. The harsh socio-economic condition and the retardation everywhere evident in a 50-year old nation have remained a forceful reminder of the unfulfilled dreams of a generation of committed idealists, who as baby-boomers, came of age and grew to maturity - at least chronologically - in lock-step with the Jamaican polity. The author recently retired after nearly 37 years as a scientific professional, spent mainly in the Jamaican Public Sector. His first twenty-five years were devoted primarily to research in the field of Animal Nutrition, while his final stint was focused on policy analysis and formulation specifically for an embattled Jamaican dairy sector. He brought much passion and took great pride in his professional contribution to national development and throughout the text, conveys the patent inference that the absence of a similar selfless professionalism at the level of political management has been a prime contributor to Jamaica’s retarded socio-economic development. The review is couched as an epistle to his late grandmother who raised him, and who died in 1973; on the eve of his embarking on a professional career. In accounting to his Gammaw, the author utilizes a number of statistical techniques applied in his line of work, to objectively analyze national performance over the four decades since her passing. In its scope the book evaluates six important aspects of national life, against the backdrop of the political Mission defined by National Hero, Norman Manley, for his heirs and successors, as being ‘…to proceed to the social and economic reform of Jamaica’. The review examines the integrally linked issues of Poverty, Inequality and Violence - the principal failures of the political class; the socio-cultural impact of West Indies Cricket on the collective national self-confidence; the ascendancy of the Jamaican Woman in all spheres of national life; the role of the Jamaican Church in national development; and the socio-cultural influence of Jamaican Music on the national consciousness. Inevitably, it also offers a critique of the uncritical adoption of public policy based upon Comparative Advantage Theory, on economic development, using the vicissitudes suffered by the Jamaican Dairy Sector as a compelling case study. The analytic approaches applied, have facilitated the development by the author of a range of recommendations for contributing to a process of amelioration toward realizing ‘the social and economic reform of Jamaica.’ The book is targeted at readers who seriously grapple with the issue of Development within a harsh global economic environment. It includes an extensive bibliography as well as a comprehensive index.
