Seaga

Edward Seaga and The Challenges of Modern Jamaica, a biography on Jamaica's fifth prime minister, is to be released in November by the University of the West Indies (UWI) Press.

The 480-page book is written by professor Patrick E. Bryan, a lecturer in the faculty of humanities and education at UWI's Mona campus.

Bryan told The Gleaner that he began work on the book in 2005 when he conducted the first in a series of interviews with Seaga, who was prime minister from 1980 to 1989. He also spoke to some of his political protégés and rivals including Jeanette Grant-Woodham of the Jamaica Labour Party (JLP) and Maxine Henry-Wilson of the People's National Party (PNP).

Bryan said he went all out to present the authentic Seaga. The positives include his contribution to the development of independent Jamaica, but he also details the polarising impact Seaga had on the country's politics during the 1970s when he tried to wrest power from socialist prime minister Michael Manley.

untreated fairly

"He has been demonised, I don't think he has been treated fairly. More and more people are seeing that he has made a significant contribution to Jamaica," Bryan said. He added that Seaga, as leader of the opposition JLP in the 1970s, hurt the country with "unnecessary" accusations that Manley was leading Jamaica on the road to communism. The Cold War scenario in Jamaica at the time triggered bloody fighting between supporters of the JLP and PNP, resulting in the deaths of hundreds of persons.

Linda Speth, general manager at the UWI Press, says the initial print run of Edward Seaga and The Challenges of Modern Jamaica will be 2,000 copies. Already, she says they have received orders from the Caribbean, Canada, the United States and Britain.

Born in New York City in 1930 to Jamaican parents, Seaga returned to Jamaica as an infant and attended Wolmer's Boys' School and later Harvard University where he studied anthropology.

After serving as a minister in the administrations of prime ministers Sir Alexander Bustamante, Donald Sangster and Hugh Shearer, Seaga assumed leadership of the JLP in 1974 and was elected prime minister in October 1980.

He retired from politics in January 2005.