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    Sexing the Caribbean: Gender, Race and Sexual Labor

    This unprecedented work provides both the history of sex work in this region as well as an examination of current-day sex tourism. Based on interviews with sex workers, brothel owners, local residents and tourists, Kamala Kempadoo offers a vivid account of what life is like in the world of sex tourism as well as its entrenched roots in colonialism and slavery in the Caribbean.

    Human Biology of Afro-Caribbean Populations

    A comprehensive study of the microevolution of Caribbean populations of African descent, this 2006 book reviews the conditions endured by the slaves during their passage and in the plantations and how these conditions may have affected their own health and that of their descendants. Providing an evolutionary framework for understanding the epidemiology of common modern-day diseases such as obesity, hypertension and diabetes, it also looks at infectious diseases and their effect on the genetic make-up of Afro-Caribbean populations. Also covered are population genetics studies that have been used to understand the microevolutionary pathways for various populations, and demographic characteristics including the relationships between migration, family type and fertility. Ending with a case study of the Afro-Caribbean population of Limón, Costa Rica, this book is an essential resource for researchers working in biological anthropology, demography, and epidemiology, and for those interested in the African diaspora in the New World. [Lorena_Madrigal]_Human_Biology_of_Afro-Caribbean__BookZZ.org_

    Bittersweet Legacy: The Black and White "Better Classes" in Charlotte, 1850-1910

    Bittersweet Legacy is the dramatic story of the relationship between two generations of black and white southerners in Charlotte, North Carolina, from 1850 to 1910. Janette Greenwood describes the interactions between black and white business and professional people--the 'better classes,' as they called themselves. Her book paints a surprisingly complex portrait of race and class relations in the New South and demonstrates the impact of personal relationships, generational shifts, and the interplay of local, state, and national events in shaping the responses of black and white southerners to each other and the world around them. Greenwood argues that concepts of race and class changed significantly in the late nineteenth century. Documenting the rise of interracial social reform movements in the 1880s, she suggests that the 'better classes' briefly created an alternative vision of race relations. The disintegration of the alliance as a result of New South politics and a generational shift in leadership left a bittersweet legacy for Charlotte that would weigh heavily on its citizens well into the twentieth century. [janette_thomas_greenwood]_bittersweet_legacy_the_bookzz.org_

    Racism on the Victorian Stage: Representation of Slavery and the Black Character

    While there are many studies of nineteenth-century race theories and scientific racism, the attitudes and stereotypes expressed in popular culture have rarely been examined, and then only for the latter half of the century. Theatre then was mass entertainment and these forgotten plays, hastily written, surviving only as hand-written manuscripts or cheap pamphlets, are a rich seam for the cultural historian. Mining them to discover how 'race' was viewed and how the stereotype of the black developed and degraded, sheds a fascinating light on the development of racism in English culture. In the process, this book helps to explain how a certain flexibility in attitudes towards skin colour, observable at the end of the eighteenth century, changed into the hardened jingoism of the late nineteenth. Concentrating on the period 1830 to 1860, its detailed excavation of some seventy plays makes it invaluable to the theatre historian and black studies scholar. [Hazel_Waters]_Racism_on_the_Victorian_Stage_Repr_BookZZ.org_

    Laughing Fit to Kill: Black Humor in the Fictions of Slavery

    Reassessing the meanings of "black humor" and "dark satire," Laughing Fit to Kill illustrates how black comedians, writers, and artists have deftly deployed various modes of comedic "conjuring"--the absurd, the grotesque, and the strategic expression of racial stereotypes--to redress not only the past injustices of slavery and racism in America but also their legacy in the present. Focusing on representations of slavery in the post-civil rights era, Carpio explores stereotypes in Richard Pryor's groundbreaking stand-up act and the outrageous comedy of Chappelle's Show to demonstrate how deeply indebted they are to the sly social criticism embedded in the profoundly ironic nineteenth-century fiction of William Wells Brown and Charles W. Chesnutt. Similarly, she reveals how the iconoclastic literary works of Ishmael Reed and Suzan-Lori Parks use satire, hyperbole, and burlesque humor to represent a violent history and to take on issues of racial injustice. With an abundance of illustrations, Carpio also extends her discussion of radical black comedy to the visual arts as she reveals how the use of subversive appropriation by Kara Walker and Robert Colescott cleverly lampoons the iconography of slavery. Ultimately, Laughing Fit to Kill offers a unique look at the bold, complex, and just plain funny ways that African American artists have used laughter to critique slavery's dark legacy. [Glenda_Carpio]_Laughing_Fit_to_Kill_Black_Humor__BookZZ.org_

    Fabrication of Empire: The British and the Uganda Kingdoms, 1890-1902

    During the 1890s, the Scramble for Africa created the new country of Uganda. This inland territory carved out by British agents first encompassed some 20-30 African kingdoms. In his magisterial new study, Anthony Low examines how and why the British were able to dominate these rulerships and establish a colonial government. At the same time, the book goes beyond providing a simple narrative account of events; rather, Low seeks to analyse the conditions under which such a transformation was possible. By skilfully negotiating the many complex political and social undercurrents of this period, Low presents a groundbreaking theoretical model of colonial conquest and rule. The result is a major contribution to debates about the making of empire that will appeal to Africanists and imperial historians alike 0521843510_1107688493

    Traders, Planters and Slaves: Market Behavior in Early English America

    The explosive growth of the Atlantic slave trade in the second half of the seventeenth century made the international trade in Africans one of the world's largest industries. This book explores the operation of that industry in the late seventeenth and early eighteenth centuries, focusing on the market behaviour of the Royal African Company - the largest English company engaged in the slave trade - and the sugar planters of the Caribbean, who were the trade's principal customers in English America. A richly detailed portrayal of the slave trade to English America emerges, one that shows it to have been a highly competitive and efficient transatlantic market. In revealing the existence of sophisticated and complex market behaviour in this early period of black slavery in the New World, the book adds to our understanding of the development of large-scale competitive markets, as well as to our knowledge of the efficiency of resource allocation in early English America. [David_W._Galenson]_Traders__Planters_and_Slaves__BookZZ.org_

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