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The Loss of El Dorado: A Colonial History | 
 enlarge | Author: V.s. Naipaul
Publisher: Vintage
Category: Book
List Price: $14.00
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Rating:  2 reviews
Sales Rank: 294853
Media: Paperback
Pages: 400
Number Of Items: 1
Shipping Weight (lbs): 0.6
Dimensions (in): 8.1 x 5.2 x 0.9
ISBN: 1400030765
Dewey Decimal Number: 972.983
EAN: 9781400030767
ASIN: 1400030765
Publication Date: April 8, 2003
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Shipping: International shipping available
Condition: BRAND NEW
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Product Description
The history of Trinidad begins with a delusion: the belief that somewhere nearby on the South American mainland lay El Dorado, the mythical kingdom of gold. In this extraordinary and often gripping book, V. S. Naipaul–himself a native of Trinidad–shows how that delusion drew a small island into the vortex of world events, making it the object of Spanish and English colonial designs and a mecca for treasure-seekers, slave-traders, and revolutionaries.
Amid massacres and poisonings, plunder and multinational intrigue, two themes emerge: the grinding down of the Aborigines during the long rivalries of the El Dorado quest and, two hundred years later, the man-made horror of slavery. An accumulation of casual, awful detail takes us as close as we can get to day-to-day life in the slave colony, where, in spite of various titles of nobility, only an opportunistic, near-lawless community exists, always fearful of slave suicide or poison, of African sorcery and revolt. Naipaul tells this labyrinthine story with assurance, withering irony, and lively sympathy. The result is historical writing at its highest level.
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| Customer Reviews:
 How does a large island get so lost? March 30, 2004
Joshua Dan Berlow (Baltimore, MD USA)
10 out of 11 found this review helpful
The Spanish were sure that there was a "Third Marquisate" out there somewhere. The first two Marquisates were Mexico and Peru, two fabulously wealthy ancient Native American civilizations looted and conquered by Spain. Spain was sure that another one- El Dorado- was out there begging to be plundered, just beyond what is now Columbia and Venezuela. Not wanting to miss out on yet another one, England gets into the act. The island of Trinidad is the perfect place from which to launch expeditions into the South American interior looking for El Dorado. Thousands of men march into the Amazon jungle, never to be heard from again. Yet rumors persist...
Eventually everyone tires of looking for El Dorado, and Trinidad is forgotten. Spanish colonists on Trinidad might as well be shipwrecked, as decades go by without a visit from a Spanish ship. Three Spanish nobles are given the Governorship, but none want it. Spanish people are encouraged to migrate to Trinidad, but few go. Spain invites French landowners from elsewhere in the Caribbean (displaced by the French Revolution) to settle in Trinidad, and some come to set up plantations on the island.
In 1797 the British send eighteen ships to take Trinidad from Spain. Outnumbered, the Spanish capitulate with barely a fight. The Spanish on the island aren't that unhappy about the British takeover anyway. Spain has ignored Trinidad, and at least the British aren't the revolutionary French.
Now there are settlers from three European countries trying to live together in Trinidad- the Spanish, the French planters, and the English. Which countries laws to follow? Some traditions are kept by French and Spanish planters in Trinidad, notably cruelty to slaves. These practices offend some British. Three revolutions make folks nervous in Trinidad- The American Revolution, the French Revolution, and finally the Negro slave revolt in Haiti. The British try to turn all the revolutionary fervor to their own advantage, hoping for a Fourth Revolution in which South America throws off Spain. They scheme with a Venezuelan named Miranda.
All this makes for a fascinating, well told story by a Nobel-prize winning novelist. I've always found Caribbean history fascinating, as Europe squabbles over these beautiful islands. You don't have to know Caribbean history to enjoy the sun on a lovely beach, but knowing some makes your island time even more enjoyable.
 Naipaul's history of "nowhere" July 26, 2001
Robert J. Crawford (Balmette Talloires, France)
7 out of 9 found this review helpful
THis is a great book, a history of the founding of a place - where Naipaul was born - that virtually no one cares about. As such, there is nihilism at the very core of the book, which Naipaul emphasizes by beginning with a tribe (just a name) whose only existing reference was that it was annihilated during the colonization. And yet, this book is brilliantly written, full of drama of torture and interminable trials, great and bitter ironies that lead to what Trinidad became (or didn't), all of it adding up to a sense of the passage of human life and striving. I loved this book: it is a fascinating rumination by a highly talented writer, a dark essay on futility and non-history. It may seem obscure, but then, so is much of the Third WOrld's history. That is one of Naipaul's points. He is a true master.
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