In the natural course of events, humans fall sick and die. The history of medicine bristles with attempts to find new and miraculous remedies, to work with and against nature to restore humans to health and well-being. In this book, Londa Schiebinger examines medicine and human experimentation in the Atlantic World, exploring the circulation of people, disease, plants, and knowledge between Europe, Africa, and the Americas.
The idea that sugar, plantations, slavery, and capitalism were all present at the birth of the Atlantic world has long dominated scholarly thinking. In nine original essays by a multinational group of top scholars, Tropical Babylons re-evaluates this so-called "sugar revolution." The most comprehensive comparative study to date of early Atlantic sugar economies, this collection presents a revisionist examination of the origins of society and economy in the Atlantic world.
The Dictionary of Caribbean and Afro-Latin American Biography is a major biographical reference work covering the lives and legacies of notable Afro-descendants from the Caribbean and Latin American, men and women from all eras and walks of life.
The Garifuna are a Central American people of West African and Native American descent. One of their most popular rituals is wanaragua, a three-fold system of masked Christmas processionals commonly called Jankunu. This ritual is a unique blend of African, European, and Native American (Arawak and Carib) art traditions in which social and cultural identities are expressed through music, dance, and costume. As dancers adorn themselves in colorful regalia to mimic past foreign oppressors they symbolically affirm their identity. They perform stylized movements to the accompaniment of drums and social commentary songs composed by men. Descriptions of the three processions and dance styles are interspersed with interviews by Garifuna singers, drummers, dancers, cultural advocates, and scholars on the significance of rituals.
A celebratory documentary, with engaging scenes of fishing, cooking, dancing, cassava preparation, thatching a temple, spiritual ritual, music and dance all demonstrating the Garifuna link to the Carib-African past.
Descendants of African and Carib-Indian ancestors, the Garifuna fought to maintain their homeland and resisted slavery. For this love of freedom, they were exiled from St. Vincent in the Caribbean by the British in 1797. Despite exile and subsequent Diaspora, their traditional culture survives today. It is a little known story that deserves its place in the annals of the African Diaspora. In first person Garifuna voices, this documentary presents the history, the language, food, music, dance and spirituality of the Garifuna culture.