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The Natural History of the Bahamas fills a void in the literature on the avian and terrestrial species found there and is an overall excellent guide.— Sandra D. Buckner, Past President of the Bahamas National Trust Take this book with you on your next trip to the Bahamas or the Turks and Caicos Islands or keep it close to hand in your travel library. The Natural History of the Bahamas offers the most comprehensive coverage of the terrestrial and coastal flora and fauna on the islands of the Bahamas archipelago, as well as of the region's natural history and ecology. Readers will gain an appreciation for the importance of conserving the diverse lifeforms on these special Caribbean islands. A detailed introduction to the history, geology, and climate of the islands. Beautifully illustrated, with more than seven hundred color photographs showcasing the diverse plants, fungi, and animals found on the Bahamian Archipelago.
This volume brings together examples of the best research to address the complexity of the Caribbean past.
The Caribbean before Columbus is a new synthesis of the region's insular history based on the authors' 55 years of research in the Bahamas, Lesser and Greater Antilles. The presentation operates on multiple scales, and individual sites highlight specific issues. For the first time, complete histories are elucidated through an emphasis on cultural diversity.
Drawing on letters, illustrations, engravings, and neglected manuscripts, Christopher Iannini connects two dramatic transformations in the eighteenth-century Atlantic world--the emergence and growth of the Caribbean plantation system and the rise of natural science. Iannini argues that these transformations were not only deeply interconnected, but that together they established conditions fundamental to the development of a distinctive literary culture in the early Americas. In fact, eighteenth-century natural history as a literary genre largely took its shape from its practice in the Caribbean, an oft-studied region that was a prime source of wealth for all of Europe and the Americas. The formal evolution of colonial prose narrative, Ianinni argues, was contingent upon the emergence of natural history writing, which itself emerged necessarily from within the context of Atlantic slavery and the production of tropical commodities. As he reestablishes the history of cultural exchange between the Caribbean and North America, Ianinni recovers the importance of the West Indies in the formation of American literary and intellectual culture as well as its place in assessing the moral implications of colonial slavery.
Cross-Cultural Studies is the culminating effort of a distinguished team of international scholars who have worked since the mid-1980s to create the most complete analysis of Caribbean literature ever undertaken. Conceived as a major contribution to postcolonial studies, cultural studies, cultural anthropology, and regional studies of the Caribbean and the Americas, Cross-Cultural Studies illuminates the interrelations between and among Europe, the Caribbean islands, Africa, and the American continents from the late fifteenth century to the present. Scholars from five continents bring to bear on the most salient issues of Caribbean literature theoretical and critical positions that are currently in the forefront of discussion in literature, the arts, and public policy. Among the major issues treated at length in Cross-Cultural Studies are: The history and construction of racial inequality in Caribbean colonization; The origins and formation of literatures in various Creoles; The gendered literary representation of the Caribbean region; The political and ideological appropriation of Caribbean history in creating the idea of national culture in North and South America, Europe, and Africa; The role of the Caribbean in contemporary theories of Modernism and the Postmodern; The decentering of such canonical authors as Shakespeare; The vexed but inevitable connectedness of Caribbean literature with both its former colonial metropoles and its geographical neighbors. Contributions to Cross-Cultural Studies give a concrete cultural and historical analysis of such contemporary critical terms as hybridity, transculturation, and the carnivalesque, which have so often been taken out of context and employed in narrowly ideological contexts. Two important theories of the simultaneous unity and diversity of Caribbean literature and culture, propounded by Antonio Benítez-Rojo and +douard Glissant, receive extended treatment that places them strategically in the debate over multiculturalism in postcolonial societies and in the context of chaos theory. A contribution by Benítez-Rojo permits the reader to test the theory through his critical practice. Divided into nine thematic and methodological sections followed by a complete index to the names and dates of authors and significant historical figures discussed, Cross-Cultural Studies will be an indispensable resource for every library and a necessary handbook for scholars, teachers, and advanced students of the Caribbean region.
A compelling account of Caribbean history from colonization to slavery and revolution, through the tumult of hurricanes and climate change.
Keegan and Carlson, combined, have spent over 45 years conducting archaeological research in the Caribbean, directing projects in Trinidad, Grenada, St. Lucia, Puerto Rico, the Dominican Republic, Haiti, Cuba, Jamaica, Grand Cayman, the Turks & Caicos Islands, and throughout the Bahamas. Walking hundreds of miles of beaches, working without shade in the Caribbean sun, diving in refreshing and pristine waters, and studying the people and natural environment around them has given them insights into the lifeways of the people who lived in the Caribbean before the arrival of Christopher Columbus. Sadly, harsh treatment extinguished the culture that we today call Taíno or Arawak. In an effort to repay their debt to the past and the present, the authors have focused on the relationship between the Taínos of the past (revealed through archaeological investigations) and the present natural history of the islands. Bringing the past to life and highlighting commonalities between past and present, they emphasize Taíno words and beliefs about their worldview and culture.
"A survey of the current state of study of indigenous Caribbean people by archaeologists, historians, and anthropologists. . . . Emphasizes that even though indigenous people were the victims of genocide, they helped to establish a persistent pattern of relations between other Caribbean settlers and their environment, and became central symbols of Caribbean identity and resistance to colonialism. . . . Strongly recommended for every library concerned with Caribbean and native American studies."--Choice "An excellent introduction to native peoples of the Caribbean region. . . . Will be useful to anthropologists, historians, and other social scientists working in the Caribbean."--Jerald T. Milanich, Florida Museum of Natural History This volume brings together nineteen Caribbean specialists to produce the first general introduction to the indigenous peoples of that region. Writing for both general and academic audiences, contributors provide an authoritative, up-to-date picture of these fascinating peoples--their social organization, religion, language, lifeways, and contribution to the culture of their modern descendants--in what is ultimately a comprehensive reader on Caribbean archaeology, ethnohistory, and ethnology. CONTENTS 1. Introduction, Samuel M. Wilson Part 1: Background to the Archaeology and Ethnohistory of the Caribbean 2. The Study of Aboriginal Peoples: Multiple Ways of Knowing, Ricardo Alegría 3. The Lesser Antilles Before Columbus, Louis Allaire Part 2: The Encounter 4. The Biological Impacts of 1492, Richard L. Cunningham 5. The Salt River Site, St. Croix, at the Time of the Encounter, Birgit Faber Morse 6. European Views of the Aboriginal Population, Alissandra Cummins Part 3: The First Migration of Village Farmers, 500 B.C. to A.D. 800 7. Settlement Strategies in the Early Ceramic Age, Jay B. Haviser 8. The Ceramics, Art, and Material Culture of the Early Ceramic Period in the Caribbean Islands, Elizabeth Righter 9. Religious Beliefs of the Saladoid People, Miguel Rodríguez 10. Maritime Trade in the Prehistoric Eastern Caribbean, David R. Watters 11. Notes on Ancient Caribbean Art and Mythology, Henry Petitjean Roget Part 4: The Taino of the Greater Antilles on the Eve of Conquest 12. "No Man (or Woman) Is an Island": Elements of Taino Social Organization, William F. Keegan 13. Taino, Island Carib, and Prehistoric Amerindian Economies in the West Indies: Tropical Forest Adaptations to Island Environments, James B. Petersen 14. The Material Culture of the Taino Indians, Ignacio Olazagasti 15. The Taino Cosmos, José R. Oliver 16. Some Observations on the Taino Language, Arnold R. Highfield 17. The Taino Vision: A Study in the Exchange of Misunderstanding, Henry Petitjean Roget Part 5: The Island Caribs of the Lesser Antilles 18. The Caribs of the Lesser Antilles, Louis Allaire 19. Language and Gender among the Kalinago of 15th Century St. Croix, Vincent O. Cooper Part 6: Indigenous Resistance and Survival 20. The Garifuna of Central America, Nancie L. Gonzalez 21. The Legacy of the Indigenous People of the Caribbean, Samuel M. Wilson 22. Five Hundred Years of Indigenous Resistance, Garnette Joseph Samuel M. Wilson is associate professor of anthropology at the University of Texas, Austin. He is author of Hispaniola: Caribbean Chiefdoms in the Age of Columbus (1990), coeditor of Ethnohistory and Archaeology: Approaches to Postcontact Change in the Americas (1993), and a contributing editor and columnist for Natural History magazine.