The people of Puerto Rico are caught in a centuries-old dilemma—the dilemma between the fortress and the city, between the strategic imperative and the pull towards the emergence of a cultural nationality. In this non-partisan text, author Arturo Morales Carrión discusses the island's social, institutional, an cultural evolution and provides a historical perspective on all political positions.

The average textbook takes up Puerto Rico's history in 1898 when Spain ceded the island to the United States in the Treaty of Paris. But these histories neglect the social, political, and cultural factors that shaped Puerto Rico. Indeed, American intervention in 1898 only formed a watershed between two eras. The Spaniards first brought western civilization to the island; succeeding years saw the rise of the plantation economy as well as the Atlantic revolutions. Throughout the Spanish occupation, however Puerto Ricans struggled for self-determination beside the Spanish colonial policies and attitudes.

In the years between 1898 and World War I, the island experienced great changes in the cultural life as the people came under the influence of a new language foreign to the beliefs and traditions of their ancestors. After 1898, Puerto Ricans had to resolve the conflict between their colonial dependency upon the United States and the evolution of their own culture.

Attention to problems related to the Puerto Rican search for identity makes this a book of special interest to Americans and Puerto Ricans alike. A poignant section embraces the secret struggle of many migrants from Puerto Rico to the land of freedom and opportunity. With an artistry and mode of expression all their own, mainland Puerto Ricans reveal their struggles as a minority subject to persecution in many areas.

"Understanding the island and its people," says the author, "involves transcending the confines of American nationalism in an effort at empathy and insight. Only through mutual understanding and respect will the United States and Puerto Rico face with hope and creativity the many baffling and thorny issues of the present."