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The anglophone Caribbean has long been celebrated and known for its vibrant and innovative music. Reggae, dancehall, calypso, soca, gospel and ringbang have flourished within the Caribbean and have exploded on the worldwide stage. Somewhat surprisingly, many facets of this contribution have not been analysed or discussed by academic writing. This work deliberately moves away from the customary exclusive focus on Trinidad and Jamaica and broadens the discourse to represent the wider region. It addresses such topics as the status of Caribbean gospel; the birth of new musical styles in the Eastern Caribbean; cultural misrepresentation in Caribbean music videos; the representation of Aids in Caribbean music; and the impact of the actual music technology utilized by Caribbean musicians since the 1980s.

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The West Indies Cricket Team, formed in 1884, made its first overseas tour two years later to Canada and the United States. The tourists played thirteen matches during August and September; they won six, lost five and two were drawn. The first match was played against the Montreal Cricket Club, 16-17 August 1886. It ended in a draw after which the West Indians moved on to Ottawa, Toronto and Hamilton.They arrived in the United States to play several matches in Philadelphia where the cricket culture was well established. Local clubs proved too strong an opposition for the tourists. The press was encouraging but made it clear that the islanders were out of their depth. It was an important tour for the first West Indians cricketers. It was the first international step in an apprenticeship that lasted decades. The English decided, finally, to host the West Indians in 1900. This book speaks to the Canadian and American beginning of the West Indian cricket culture that was to emerge a century later as the most powerful performance force the game had ever seen.

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This interdisciplinary study examines the cultural and historical significance of the Jamaican Anansi folktales.

Anansi the spider is the trickster folk hero West African slaves transported to the Caribbean, who symbolises key aspects of Afro-Caribbean culture and is celebrated as a vital link with an African past. Anansi stories, in which the small spider turns the tables on his powerful enemies through cunning and trickery, are now told and published worldwide.

Anansi survived a cultural metamorphosis and came to symbolise the resistance of the Jamaican people. This original book examines Anansis roots in Ghana, details the changes Anansi underwent during the Middle Passage and his potential for inspiring tactics of resistance in a plantation context, and analyses Anansis role in postcolonial Jamaica, illustrating how he is interpreted as a symbol of individualism and celebrated as an emblem of resistance.

With its broad historical sweep, tracing Anansi from Ghana through to his contested position in contemporary Jamaica, this book makes an important contribution to the ongoing debate about whether the slave trade transmitted or destroyed the culture of the enslaved.

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Claude McKay remains one of the most influential intellectuals of the African Diaspora. Best remembered for his extraordinary poetry, his achievement in verse has been widely analyzed and praised. Yet in the welter of discussion about McKay, little has been said about his early writing in Jamaican. Two collections from the period, Songs of Jamaica and Constab Ballads, are more known about than known, and his poems for the Jamaican press, most of which have never been anthologized, are rarely studied.
In A Fierce Hatred of Injustice, Winston James elegantly redresses this omission. Through a subtle and detailed consideration of McKay's formative years on the island, James reviews the themes and politics of poetry which McKay began writing at the age of ten. Above all he focuses on the poet's pioneering use of Jamaican creole revealing the way in which this laid a foundation for subsequent work by writers such as Louise Bennett, Linton Kwesi Johnson and Michael Smith. The volume concludes with a comprehensive anthology of the early poems together with a comic sketch about Jamaican peasant life by McKay and an autobiographical essay on his experiences in the Kingston police force.

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Higher Education in the Caribbean assesses the role the University of the West Indies has played since its inception in providing tertiary education to the peoples of the Caribbean and evaluates the future of the institution as it enters the twenty-first century. The work is a significant contribution to the literature in this important area of Caribbean scholarship. The collection was written to mark the fiftieth anniversary of the University of the West Indies in 1998. Contributors address such complex issues as tertiary education in the light of the rapid advances in technology that characterized the last decades of the twentieth century, demands from the political directorate for more relevant course offerings, and the challenges of managing processes of institutional change.

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Fine sand, swaying palm trees, turquoise-blue lagoons, powder-puff clouds, and the gentle caress of the Trade Winds: the islands of the Caribbean are surely the last remaining paradise on earth. Wild mountains, impenetrable forests, shores that could still hide Robinson Crusoe; over the years tourism has left an increasing mark on the Greater and Lesser Antilles, but their distinctive charm and the appealing candour of their people remain intact.The attraction of these islands lies not only in their stunning natural beauty but in their unique history and culture. The brutal impact of European conquest on the lands of this 'New World' changed their indigenous face forever. The legacy of multiethnic settlement is evident in the Caribbean melting pot of today: every part of these islands is a piece of Europe transplanted in the tropics and subsequently infused with a strong dose of African traditions. As if by magic, these islands have succeeded in distilling the essence of Europe and mixing it with the exuberance of Africa and the voluptuous languor of the Tropics, and the effects of this intoxicating cocktail are seen in the impassioned, slightly run-down Spanish charm of Old Havana; evocative French chic in Martinique; the thoroughly Northern European taste of the pastel-painted houses of the Netherlands Antilles; and, the order and measured elegance of the former British colonies.