Caribbean Contours / Edition 1

by Sidney W. Mintz, Sally Price

Overview

Stretching from the Bahamas in the north to the Guianas on the South American mainland, the societies of the Caribbean have been shaped over time be the contirbutions of many peoples—the region's originial Amerindian inhabitants; colonists from Spain, England, France, the Netherlands, Sweden, and Denmark; men and women from hundreds of African societies who were imported as slaves; and the contract laborers who were later brought from Asia, Africa, Europe, and the Middle East.

In Caribbean Contours eight leading scholars in the humanities and the social sciences survey the history, politics, economics, demography, and culture of the Caribbean to provide an authoritative yet accessible introduction to this complex and geographically fragmented region.

From a United States perspective, the eople of the Caribbean are at once familiar and foreign—an everyday presence in the lives of many urban Americans on the one hand, representatives of exotic worlds for millions of American tourists on the other. This volume is intended to provide some of the essential facts underlying both the unity and diversity of Caribbean scieties, and thus to contirbute to an understanding of the region's increasing importance in the modern world.

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9780801832727
Publisher:	Johns Hopkins University Press
Publication date:	04/01/1985
Series:	Johns Hopkins Studies in Atlantic History and Culture
Edition description:	New Edition
Pages:	264
Product dimensions:	6.00(w) x 9.00(h) x 0.60(d)
Age Range:	18 Years

About the Author

Sidney W. Mintz is professor of anthropology at the Johns Hopkins University. He is author of Worker in the Cane, Caribbean Transformations, and Sweetness and Power.

Sally Price is professor of anthropology at the Johns Hopkins University. She has co-written Afro-American Arts of the Suriname Rain Forest and Co-wives and Calabashes.

Table of Contents

Introduction
Chapter 1. A Political Profile in the Caribbean
Chapter 2. "Race" and Color in the Caribbean
Chapter 3. Sugar in the Caribbean: Turning Sunshine into Money
Chapter 4. From Plantations to Peasantries in the Caribbean
Chapter 5. A Linguistic Perspective on the Caribbean
Chapter 6. The Caribbean as a Musical Region
Chapter 7. The Contemporary Caribbean: A General Overview
Notes on the Contributors
List of Books in the Series

Editorial Reviews

This book is truly pan-Caribbean in scope and approach . . . The contributors, who know the region well and are generally leading scholars in their field, succeed in surveying diverse aspects of Caribbean life with sensitivity, erudition, and a proper respect for the complexity of theirsubject.
—Bridget Brereton, Hispanic American Historical Review

From the Publisher

This book is truly pan-Caribbean in scope and approach . . . The contributors, who know the region well and are generally leading scholars in their field, succeed in surveying diverse aspects of Caribbean life with sensitivity, erudition, and a proper respect for the complexity of theirsubject.

Hispanic American Historical Review - Bridget Brereton