Additional information
by Sydney Selvon (Author)
This is volume 2 of a three-part comprehensive history of Mauritius from prehistory to present times. Author Sydney Selvon, has added in this 2nd edition a history of private enterprise in Mauritius throughout the centuries and recalls the major role of private enterprise in the famous Mauritius Economic Miracle in the 1970s, another one that started with the radical 1982-83 budgetary reform and the formidable success of the setting up of a financial centre and the Ebene Cybercity during the first five years of the 21st century, from 2000 to 2005, a boost to IT industries and job creation. The 20th century started with major environmental concerns for the small island-nation of about 1.26 million people and in 2017, the economy of the country was beset by major deficits, corruption, drug trafficking and other evils, although the country had reached the status of an upper middle income country according to the World Bank from the turn of the 20th century.
Author Biography
Sydney Selvon was the editor of the French newspaper Le Mauriticien and editor in the Rural Press Group, Australia, and of three other English language newspapers in the Bowes Publishers/Sun Media Corporation/Quebecor in Alberta and Saskatchewan in Canada. He was the High Commissioner of Mauritius to Australlia in 1995-96 and has served in government committees on history, one of which decided on the date for a public holiday commemorating the abolition of indentured labour. He presented his research on the genesis of the village system at the International Seminar on Slavery in the Southwest Indian Ocean in 1984, and was hailed in the 1970s and 1980s as one of the founding members of the so-called "New Historians" comprising also Dr Satteeanun d Peerthum and Muslim Iumeer, who have initiated an entirely new reading and writing of Mauritian history, free from the traditionally ethnocentrist historiography that has plagued most history books until well after independence. Following that, a new generation of Mauritian historians comprising Jocelyn Chan Low, Vijaya Teelock and several others have emerged.
