Reena Goldthree, "Democracy’s Foot Soldiers: World War I and the Politics of Empire in the Greater Caribbean" (Princeton UP, 2025)

Jan 16, 2026

Reena Goldthree, an Associate Professor at Princeton University, dives into the compelling stories of Caribbean men who volunteered to fight for the British Empire during World War I. She discusses how their service propelled demands for social and political reform back home. Goldthree examines the concept of imperial patriotism and shares soldiers' emotional journeys, highlighting their struggles against racial discrimination. Her research unveils the transformational impact of these veterans on democratic participation and rights in the Caribbean.

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INSIGHT

Imperial Patriotism As Political Currency

Imperial patriotism framed Caribbean enlistment as an expression of belonging to Britain and a claim to rights as British subjects.
Reena Goldthree shows this rhetoric became a tool for soldiers to demand equality after serving.

INSIGHT

Creation Driven By Colonial Pressure

The British West Indies Regiment (BWIR) was created in 1915 after colonial petitions and brought volunteers from across the Circum-Caribbean.
Officials feared mobilizing Black soldiers due to cost, race, and potential political claims at home.

INSIGHT

Literacy Enabled Claims Making

The BWIR required literacy at first and paid soldiers the same daily rate as white British troops, creating expectations of equality.
Literacy enabled soldiers to write petitions and challenge injustices across the empire.

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Following the outbreak of World War I, tens of thousands of men from the British Caribbean volunteered as soldiers to fight on behalf of the British Empire. Despite living far from the bloody battlefields of Europe, these men enlisted for a variety of reasons—to affirm their masculine honor, pursue economic mobility, or enhance their standing as colonial subjects. Democracy’s Foot Soldiers: World War I and the Politics of Empire in the Greater Caribbean (Princeton UP, 2025) by Dr. Reena Goldthree offers a sweeping account of the British West Indies Regiment, the military unit established in 1915 for Caribbean volunteers, documenting their service during the war and their dramatic battles for racial equality and fair treatment in the armed forces and on the home front.
Drawing on previously overlooked archival sources in the Caribbean, England, and United States, Dr. Goldthree demonstrates how wartime military mobilization spurred heightened demands for social, economic, and political reform in the colonial Caribbean. She recovers the forgotten contributions of Afro-Caribbean troops during the war, following their harrowing journeys to military camps in Europe, Africa, and the Middle East. Goldthree chronicles how, after the war, soldiers, their families, and their civilian allies launched their own “war for democracy,” strategically using the rhetoric of imperial patriotism—rather than the more militant language of anticolonial nationalism—to fight for respect and equality.
Democracy’s Foot Soldiers places these soldiers at the forefront of popular struggles over race, labor, and economic justice in the early twentieth-century Caribbean, showing that the war years were a crucial period of political ferment and mass mobilization in the region.

This interview was conducted by Dr. Miranda Melcher whose book focuses on post-conflict military integration, understanding treaty negotiation and implementation in civil war contexts, with qualitative analysis of the Angolan and Mozambican civil wars. You can find Miranda’s interviews on New Books with Miranda Melcher, wherever you get your podcasts.