Cricket and calypso: Cultural representation and social history in the West Indies

Abstract

‘What do they know of cricket who only cricket know?’ is the rhetorical question posed by C.L.R. James in the Preface to Beyond a Boundary, his comprehensive treatise on cricket, West Indian social history, English letters and class struggle. In the book he provides something of a response, explaining the importance of cricket in the West Indies for a people who have everything to do in constructing a national identity: