Inward Hunger: The Education of a Prime Minister

“When the author, the Prime Minister of Trinidad and Tobago, was a lad, his country was a British crown colony, and its government offered one university scholarship a year to the entire population. Young Williams won it, and went off to Oxford to study history and politics. He became an authority on West Indian history and, back home, founded the People’s National Movement Party, which has repeatedly returned him to office. Mr. Williams’ education has endowed him with a lucid style and, despite his dedication to his homeland, a mind that is anything but insular. This account of his efforts to make a new nation closes in 1968; one looks forward to another installment.”
— The New Yorker

In the meantime, this autobiography has become a classic in African-Caribbean history. This edition features an introduction by Colin Palmer (Princeton University), the author of Passageways: An Interpretive History of Black America.


Eric Williams built his reputation as a professor of political science at Howard University. He later took an active role in politics, leading Trinidad and Tobago’s independence movement and becoming the state’s prime minister.