N.W. Manley and the Making of Modern Jamaica (Arawak Publishers), written by an experienced historian and former politician, should be required reading for politicians (regardless of party affiliation), policymakers and journalists. While Norman Manley is the central focus of the book that spans the colonial, postcolonial and contemporary periods in Jamaican history, it also explains the roots of class, colour and race prejudice in Jamaica that affected even wealthy mixed-race people and which had the potential to blight one's future and explains the role of education and family in an individual's success (chapters 4 - 9). It explains the emergence and role of early nationalist organisations and Black nationalism and the important figures in such organisations and consciousness (including Robert Love, Domingo, Garvey), as well as the history of political organising that shaped a nation's evolution from Emancipation to the present.