UCLA history professor Carla Pestana, the holder of the Joyce Appleby Endowed Chair of America in the World, has written a new book, "The English Conquest of Jamaica: Oliver Cromwell’s Bid for Empire," just published by Belknap Press-Harvard University Press.
In 1654, England’s Lord Protector Oliver Cromwell conceived a plan of breathtaking ambition: the conquest of Spain’s vast American empire. In the first phase of his Western Design, a large expedition sailed to the West Indies with secret orders to take Spanish colonies. Pestana's "The English Conquest of Jamaica" presents entrenched imperial fantasies confronting Caribbean realities. It captures the moment when the revolutionary English state first became a major player in the Atlantic arena.
Pestana studies the 17th- and 18th-century Atlantic worlds, especially the English Atlantic, the Caribbean and U.S. religious history.
For more details, see this Harvard University Press website.
