Can community formation be used as a paradigm for "national purpose and discipline in the Jamaica of today"? Reid clearly states in his Introduction that it can, and he shows how the 'free villages' of post-emancipation Jamaica serve as models and historical examples for Jamaica at the close of the twentieth century. The villages exemplified community spirit, industry, discipline and social, political and economic cooperation.This is the first full-scale study of the settlement of 'free villages' in Jamaica after Emancipation, and of community patterns and community life during this important formative period in Jamaica that saw the crumbling of slave society, the collapse of an economy based on sugar and the emergence of a "new system of relations".