Barry W. Higman

Early life and education On 30 September 1943, Higman was born in Wagga Wagga, Australia. For his post-secondary education, he graduated from the University of Sydney in 1967 with a Bachelor of Arts before obtaining Doctor of Philosophy degrees at the University of the West Indies in 1967 and the University of Liverpool in 1971.

Career Higman began his academic career in 1971 teaching at the University of the West Indies as a lecturer. He took a leave of absence in the late 1970s when he became a fellow at Princeton University in the history department. During his academic career, Higman wrote multiple books focusing on Caribbean history including Slave Population and Economy in Jamaica, 1807–1834, which was awarded the 1977 Bancroft Prize. Higman resumed his teaching with UWI in the late 1970s and became a history professor with the university in 1983.

Awards and honors Higman was awarded a Guggenheim Fellowship in 1987 for studies in Iberian and Latin American history. Outside of the United States, Higman became a Fellow of the Royal Historical Society in 1988 and received the Musgrave Medal in 1992.

Selected publications Slave Population and Economy in Jamaica, 1807–1834 How Food Made History A Concise History of the Caribbean Plantation Jamaica, 1750-1850: Capital and Control in a Colonial Economy Jamaican Food Montpelier, Jamaica: A Plantation Community in Slavery and Freedom 1739–1912 Jamaican Place Names Jamaica Surveyed: Plantation Maps and Plans of the Eighteenth and Nineteenth Centuries