Island people
Subtitle: the Caribbean and the world
By: Joshua Jelly-Schapiro
Edition: First edition.
Publisher: Alfred A. Knopf
Published: 2016
Language: eng
Number of pages: 451
ISBN-13: 9780385349765
Subjects: Intellectual life; Civilization; History
Description: "From the moment Columbus gazed out from the Santa Maria's deck in 1492 at what he mistook for an island off Asia, the Caribbean has been subjected to fantasies projected from without by the West, and viewed as a place to be consumed. It stood at the center of the transatlantic slave trade for more than 300 years. Its societies were shaped by mass migrations and forced labor from the 16th century onwards, imposed by European or latterly-American imperial masters. Scattered across a vast arc of islands and in some instances separated by the languages and cultures of their colonizers, the more than 40,000,000 Caribbean people today are countering their imperial history by shaping cultural conversation the world over: through literature, music, art, and religion in an era when cultures everywhere are contending with "rootlessness.""--
Notes: Includes bibliographical references.