The only comprehensive work on the Islands' history, Sadler's book is insightful, well researched and captures the spirited past of the Turks & Caicos. As well as being an invaluable reference tool for students of Caribbean history, it is a worthwhile and enjoyable memento for people with an interest in these islands.

The first part of the book presents a compelling argument for the theory that Columbus made his first landfall on the island of Grand Turk and gives an overview of the Lucayan culture existing on the islands at that time.

Part 2 covers the Islands' history as a rendezvous for Caribbean pirates and the Bermuda privateers who pioneered the salt making industry in the seventeenth century. The settlement of the Turks & Caicos coincided with the European struggle for supremacy in the West Indies and the tiny, but strategically placed, islands were variously claimed by Spain, France and finally held by England. They were placed under a Bahamian custodianship which sought to regulate salt production and govern the restive Bermudian salt proprietors. The Islands later lobbied successfully for a form of self-government and separation from the larger colony.

During the period known as the "Presidency" the islanders governed themselves for twenty-five years until bankruptcy forced them to become wards of Jamaica. The monoculture of salt created a precarious economy, but parts of the Caicos Islands followed the patterns of farming introduced by Loyalist settlers and their slaves. Sadler traces the experiments in alternative crops - cotton, sisal, sponging, guano - all of them marginal and short-lived; inevitably, "it was an almost impossible task to induce men accustomed to the irregular life of wrecking and salt raking... to submit to the monotonous routine necessary for remunerative results in agriculture."

Following in the tradition of their Bermudian ancestors, the settlers took more readily to a life of seafaring and shipwrecking. Many of the countless shipwrecks in these waters are recorded here, including the renowned 'Silver Banks' treasure discovered by Sir William Phips, and the Molasses Reef Wreck which has the distinction of being the oldest shipwreck found in the Americas.

The book describes the abandonment of the colony's outmoded salt economy in the post-war years, the exodus of much of the labour force, and the struggle to establish a niche for survival in the Twentieth Century. Mr Sadler includes even the more recent 'history' of these Islands up to the mid1980s: the mushrooming of Providenciales with the early development of the tourism industry, and the move for greater self-government while still remaining a colony of Great Britain.

Even those persons who own copies of the earlier volumes will want to add a copy of this new 1997 edition of H.E. Sadler's important work to their library as it contains many new offerings, including expanded text, additional sections on Twentieth Century Turks & Caicos Islands and the Post War Period, colour plates, black and white photographs and many improved charts and attractive illustrations.

This LANDFALL edition incorporates the four volumes existing at the time of the author's death in 1992, some of which had been out of print for several years, and two further volumes which had been prepared for publication. They are now consolidated under cover of one book, with footnotes throughout, cross-references, expanded bibliography and an extensive index.