This work is a multi-disciplinary reconstruction, analysis and evaluation of the development, organisation and mobilisation of political consciousness in Guyana between the legal termination of physical enslavement in 1838 and the very eve of flag-and-anthem independence in 1966. Guyanese transformed themselves from disempowered colonial subjects to citizens of variable levels of awareness and empowerment during those one hundred and twenty-six years of struggle. By the end of the study the first stirrings of political consciousness of the 1840s had become a fully blown anti-colonial social movement that reflected itself particularly in ideology ,education, the media, the arts, sport and economic, social and political organisation. Numerous organisations, themes, issues and tendencies within the movement receive careful attention in rigorous interrogation through the prisms of class, occupation, race, gender, colour and personality. A critical dialogue is maintained throughout the tex