Origins Of The Tainan Culture West Indies

When originally published in German in 1924, this volume was hailed as the first modern, comprehensive archaeological overview of an emerging area of the world, now known as the Caribbean islands. Sven Loven decided to update and reissue the work in English, which he thought to be the future international language of scholarship. This work is a classic, with enduring interpretations, broad geographic range, and an eager audience.

From two leading historians of Bahamian history comes this groundbreaking work on a unique archipelagic nation. Islanders in the Stream is not only the first comprehensive chronicle of the Bahamian people, it is also the first work of its kind and scale for any Caribbean nation. This comprehensive volume details the full, extraordinary history of all the people who have ever inhabited the islands and explains the evolution of a Bahamian national identity within the framework of neighboring territories in similar circumstances. Divided into three sections, this volume covers the period from aboriginal times to the end of formal slavery in 1838. The first part includes authoritative accounts of Columbus’s first landfall in the New World on San Salvador island, his voyage through the Bahamas, and the ensuing disastrous collision of European and native Arawak cultures. Covering the islands’ initial settlement, the second section ranges from the initial European incursions and the first English settlements through the lawless era of pirate misrule to Britain’s official takeover and development of the colony in the eighteenth century. The third, and largest, section offers a full analysis of Bahamian slave society through the great influx of Empire Loyalists and their slaves at the end of the American Revolution to the purported achievement of full freedom for the slaves in 1838. This work is both a pioneering social history and a richly illustrated narrative modifying previous Eurocentric interpretations of the islands’ early history. Written to appeal to Bahamians as well as all those interested in Caribbean history, Islanders in the Stream looks at the islands and their people in their fullest contexts, constituting not just the most thorough view of Bahamian history to date but a major contribution to Caribbean historiography.

Americanist Culture History reprints thirty-nine classic works of Americanist archaeological literature published between 1907 and 1971. The articles, in which the key concepts and analytical techniques of culture history were first defined and discussed, are reprinted, with original pagination and references, to enhance the use of this collection as a research and teaching resource. The editors also include an introduction that summarizes the rise and fall of the culture history paradigm, making this volume an excellent introduction to the field's primary literature.

As a review of the status of biogeography in the West Indies in the 1980s, the first edition of Biogeography of the West Indies: Past, Present, and Future provided a synthesis of our current knowledge of the systematics and distribution of major plant and animal groups in the Caribbean basin. The totally new and revised Second Edition, Biogeography