Omens of Adversity

"The strength of Omens of Adversity lies in its ability to productively and persuasively move across interpretive practices, weaving together a diverse array of sources.... The work has deep implications for thinking about imaginations of the future" — Stephen McIssac, TOPIA

"Scholars struggling with similar questions and concepts will find here food for thought." — Mark Thurner, American Historical Review

"David Scott has written a third installment of his innovative project to historicize our political present. Like Refashioning Futures (1999) and Conscripts of Modernity (2004), Omens of Adversity models new ways of writing history and producing theory through an engagement with the futures past, and pasts present, of Caribbean politics." — Gary Wilder, The Journal of Latin American and Caribbean Anthropology

“Omens of Adversity is a grim, sobering, and tragic book that should be required for all graduate and advanced undergraduate courses in postcolonial theory, Caribbean history, cultural anthropology, and others dealing with the “end of history” or political transition theory. Scholars with those interests should consider it a must read. It is not only a cautionary tale to constantly take stock of the past lest we live in a recurring catastrophic present but also one of the most intellectually gratifying and adventurous books of recent years.”   — Suzanne Simon, American Ethnologist

“This conceptually very dense book is surely pioneering in the way that it redefines temporality and political action and gives a language and method to study past and/or failed revolutionary actions.” — Charlotte Loris-Rodinoff, Journal of the Royal Anthropological Institute

"In examining tragedy, memory, time, and justice through the prism of the Grenada Revolution, Scott achieves what many theorists fail to do, namely, to draw universal lessons out of the particular experiences of the Caribbean, in this case Grenada’s political history." — David Austin, Ethnohistory

"Omens of Adversity will be of interest to students and scholars of Caribbean and postcolonial studies, political theory, Marxism and Revolution, Trauma and Memory Studies." — Shalini Puri, New West Indian Guide

"Omens of Adversity is a thought-provoking and thoroughly inspiring book. Particularly illuminating is the notion of the contemporary neoliberal predicament as a stagnant, stranded present, devoid of promises of a better future." — Carl Rommel, Social Anthropology

"With his analysis of the enduring character of the collective pain caused by the collapse of the New Jewel Movement and the subsequent American invasion of Grenada, Scott shows us why, at a fundamental level, the Grenada revolution remains a distinctly challenging topic for historians to write about. Scott’s analysis of memory in the wake of trauma also speaks to the practical political dimensions of dealing with painful pasts." — Paul Hebert, African American Intellectual History Society

"In many ways, Omens of Adversity is a continuation and deepening of a line of thought that social and cultural theorist David Scott has been developing for years. . . . Scott’s larger project is marked by a progressively more strident analysis, a darkening view of what he sees as our increasingly strangulated set of political possibilities. As such, Omens demands serious engagement by social and political theorists." — Robert Nichols, Political Theory

“Omens of Adversity brings to the fore the political work that silences perform in post-revolutionary societies and provides conceptually potent models for anthropologists, historians, political scientists, and others interested in probing such questions further.” — Maarit Forde, Political and Legal Anthropology Review