Puerto Rico: The Trials of the Oldest Colony in the World

The island of Puerto Rico has a severely distressed economy, is one of the most densely populated places on earth, and enjoys only limited political freedom. As a United States commonwealth, it is still treated by Congress as one of the last remaining colonies in the world. In this book a distinguished Puerto Rican legal scholar and former government official discusses the island’s century-old relationship with the United States and argues that the process of decolonization should begin immediately.

José Trías Monge first describes the Spanish rule over Puerto Rico and then traces the impact of American colonial policies there, comparing them with those in the Pacific and the British, French, and Dutch experiences in the Caribbean. He argues that the large amounts of money the United States has given to Puerto Rico have not been productive: not only has the island become frightfully dependent on United States munificence but more than 60 percent of Puerto Rican families still live below the poverty line. Politically, the situation is even worse. The United States has granted Puerto Rico limited self-government but has ignored the wishes of the Puerto Rican people―as expressed in two plebiscites―for greater autonomy, since it cannot make up its mind which decolonization option best serves American interests. Trías Monge discusses the various options of Puerto Rican independence, statehood, and an enhanced commonwealth status and urges the United States to end its present policy of inattention and inaction.

• War Against All Puerto Ricans: Revolution and Terror in America's Colony
• The Battle For Paradise: Puerto Rico Takes on the Disaster Capitalists
• Puerto Rico: What Everyone Needs to Know®
• Free Puerto Rico
• Oscar López Rivera: Between Torture and Resistance
• Boricuas: Influential Puerto Rican Writings - An Anthology
• The History of Puerto Rico: From the Spanish Discovery to the American Occupation
• The Insular Cases and the Emergence of American Empire (Landmark Law Cases and American Society)
• Puerto Rico in the American Century: A History Since 1898
• When I Was Puerto Rican: A Memoir (A Merloyd Lawrence Book)