The fictional Caribbean island nation Bourne Island is a fledgling nation, just freed from the British. The price of sugar has dropped, meaning economic crisis. The Western half of the island is suited for world business, meaning that tourism has begun to sustain portions of that part of the country, but the Eastern half, Bournehills, is in desperate disarray. So the island seeks the help of Dr. Saul Amron and the Center for Applied Social Research, an American team. Saul brings Harriet, his wife, and he brings Allen Fuso, an assistant. They are visiting Bourne Island to see if they can assist in setting up better infrastructure to raise living quality on the island.
Merle Kinbona is a native of Bournehills, but he is educated with a British education and fights for the poorly represented people in the east. The Americans agree to learn more about Bournehills, but quickly find that matters are delicate and complicated. Without a doubt, the way Americans trade with Bourne Island is partially to blame for the nightmarish state of affairs.
Amron is confused, but he is dedicated to patient contemplation until he can figure out what will be best. On the one hand, assisting the island might help in the short to medium term, but ultimately, the infrastructure will be used by global trade interests who will likely exploit the island of its resources. He can't get past the brutal realization that what he has dedicated his life to, his passion, has been turned by big business into a new form of colonialism, worse than the old one, because it's in disguise. He is left to wonder whether philanthropy could ever be truly divorced from trade interests, and he wonders what will become of islands like this one.
Ultimately, the Bournehills community is unwilling or unable to put aside their past mistreatments at the hands of foreign interests, and they even reenact their slave revolts. Marshall is left with the astonishing revelation that the same foreign powers who abused the people so violently have not even begun reparations or reconciliation.
