Space in the Tropics: From Convicts to Rockets in French Guiana
Rockets roar into space–bearing roughly half the world’s commercial satellites–from the same South American coastal rainforest where convicts once did time on infamous Devil’s Island. What makes Space in the Tropics enthralling is anthropologist Peter Redfield’s ability to draw from these two disparate European projects in French Guiana a gleaming web of ideas about the intersections of nature and culture. In comparing the Franco-European Ariane rocket program with the earlier penal experiment, Redfield connects the myth of Robinson Crusoe, nineteenth-century prison reform, the Dreyfus Affair, tropical medicine, postwar exploration of outer space, satellite technology, development, and ecotourism with a focus on place, and the incorporation of this particular place into greater extended systems. Examining the wider context of the Ariane program, he argues that technology and nature must be understood within a greater ecology of displacement and makes a case for the importance of margins in understanding the trajectories of modern life.
Author:Â Peter Redfield
Paperback:Â 350 pages
Company: University of California Press (2000-10-02)
ISBN:Â 0520219856
List Price:Â $25.95
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Papillon (P.S.)
Henri Charrière, called “Papillon,” for the butterfly tattoo on his chest, was convicted in Paris in 1931 of a murder he did not commit. Sentenced to life imprisonment in the penal colony of French Guiana, he became obsessed with one goal: escape. After planning and executing a series of treacherous yet failed attempts over many years, he was eventually sent to the notorious prison, Devil’s Island, a place from which no one had ever escaped . . . until Papillon. His flight to freedom remains one of the most incredible feats of human cunning, will, and endurance ever undertaken.
Charrière’s astonishing autobiography, Papillon, was published in France to instant acclaim in 1968, more than twenty years after his final escape. Since then, it has become a treasured classic — the gripping, shocking, ultimately uplifting odyssey of an innocent man who would not be defeated.
Author:Â Henri Charriere
Paperback:Â 576 pages
Company: Harper Perennial Modern Classics (2006-08-01) (2006-08-01)
ISBN:Â 0061120669
List Price:Â $15.95
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Enchantment of South America French Guiana
Author:Â Allan Carpenter
Hardcover:Â
Company: Childrens Press (1970)
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Beyond Papillon: The French Overseas Penal Colonies, 1854-1952 (France Overseas)
For French criminologists and colonialists of the mid-nineteenth century, the penal colonies of Guiana and New Caledonia seemed to satisfy two needs, namely, to incarcerate a growing number of criminals and to supply manpower for these developing colonies. But were these two goals not contradictory? Was the primary purpose of the penal colonies to punish or to colonize? In the prisons, inmates found means of subversion, guards resisted militaristic discipline, and camp commanders fought physicians for authority. Back in the
metropole, journalistic exposés catered to the public’s fascination with the penal colonies’ horror and exoticism.
An understanding of modern France is not complete without an examination of this institution, which existed for more than a century and imprisoned more than one hundred thousand people. Stephen A. Toth invites readers to experience the prisons firsthand. Through a careful analysis of criminal case files, administrative records, and prisoner biographies, Toth reconstructs life in the penal colonies and examines how the social sciences, tropical medicine, and sensational journalism evaluated and exploited the inmates’ experiences. In exploring the disjuncture between the real and the imagined, he moves beyond mythic characterizations of the penal colonies to reveal how power, discipline, and punishment were construed and enforced in these prison outposts.
Author:Â Stephen A. Toth
Hardcover:Â 216 pages
Company: University of Nebraska Press (2006-09-01)
ISBN:Â 0803244495
List Price:Â $19.95
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The Modern Caribbean
This collection of thirteen original essays by experts in the field of Caribbean studies clarifies the diverse elements that have shaped the modern Caribbean. Through an interdisciplinary examination of the complexities of race, politics, language, and environment that mark the region, the authors offer readers a thorough understanding of the Caribbean’s history and culture. The essays also comment thoughtfully on the problems that confront the Caribbean in today’s world.
The essays focus on the Caribbean island and the mainland enclaves of Belize and the Guianas. Topics examined include the Haitian Revolution of the late eighteenth and early nineteenth centuries; labor and society in the nineteenth-century Caribbean; society and culture in the British and French West Indies since 1870; identity, race, and black power in Jamaica; the “February Revolution” of 1970 in Trinidad; contemporary Puerto Rico; politics, economy, and society in twentieth-century Cuba; Spanish Caribbean politics and nationalism in the nineteenth century; Caribbean migrations; economic history of the British Caribbean; international relations; and nationalism, nation, and ideology in the evolution of Caribbean literature.
The authors trace the historical roots of current Caribbean difficulties and analyze these problems in the light of economic, political, and social developments. Additionally, they explore these conditions in relation to United States interests and project what may lie ahead for the region. The challenges currently facing the Caribbean, note the editors, impose a heavy burden upon political leaders who must struggle “to eliminate the tensions when the people are so poor and their expectations so great.”
The contributors are Herman L. Bennett, Bridget Brereton, David Geggus, Franklin W. Knight, Anthony P. Maingot, Jay R. Mandle, Roberto M‡rquez, Teresita Mart’nez Vergne, Colin A. Palmer, Bonham C. Richardson, Franciso A. Scarano, and Blanca G. Silvestrini.
Author:Â Franklin W. Knight
Paperback:Â 396 pages
Company: The University of North Carolina Press (1989-05-16)
ISBN:Â 0807842400
List Price:Â $24.95
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French Guiana (Enchantment of the World. Second Series)
Author:Â Marion Morrison
Library Binding:Â 127 pages
Company:Â Children’s Press (CT)Â (1995-03)
ISBN:Â 051602633X
List Price:Â $32.00
Amazon Price:Â $1.50
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Papillon
Henri Charrière, called Papillon, for the butterfly tattoo on his chest, was convicted in Paris in 1931 for a murder he did not commit. When he was sentenced to life imprisonment in the penal colony of French Guiana, one thought obsessed him: escape. After planning and executing a series of treacherous yet failed attempts over many years, Papillon was eventually sent to the notorious prison, Devil’s Island, a place from which no one had ever escaped — that was, until Papillon. His escape, described in breathless detail, was one of the most incredible tests of human cunning, will, and endurance.
In 1968, more than twenty years after his final escape, Charrière had his astonishing autobiography, Papillon, published in France to instant acclaim — a worldwide bestseller describing the gripping, shocking odyssey of the author’s imprisonment and escape over a greuling decade.
Author:Â Henri Charriere
Paperback:Â 560 pages
Company: Harper Perennial (2001-07-01) (2001-06-26)
ISBN:Â 0060934794
List Price:Â $15.95
Amazon Price:Â $6.97
Used Price:Â $3.90
Christmas Holiday
For Christmas, Charley Mason’s father granted him a trip to Paris, all expenses paid. It should have been a lark, but on his first night Charley meets a woman whose story will forever change his life.
For Lydia has seen tragedy. The Russian Revolution displaced her family, left her homeless, fatherless. And for reasons that elude Charley, Lydia pines for a man half a world away–a dope dealer and murderer whose sins Lydia seeks to absolve through her own self- destruction. Haunting, erotic, deeply effecting, Christmas Holiday explores two souls capsized by compassion–and the confusion that engulfed a generation in the days between the Great Wars.
Author:Â W. Somerset Maugham
Paperback:Â 320 pages
Company: Vintage (2000-12-05) (2000-12-05)
ISBN:Â 0375724613
List Price:Â $13.95
Amazon Price:Â $7.00
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Mammals of the Neotropics, Volume 1: The Northern Neotropics: Panama, Colombia, Venezuela, Guyana, Suriname, French Guiana (Eisenberg, John F//Mammals of the Neotropics)
In recent decades, growing numbers of researchers have been drawn to the rich and highly threatened biotic diversity of the Neotropics, where mammals are among the most difficult animals to observe and study in detail.
Mammals of the Neotropics fills the need for a comprehensive, up-to-date survey of existing knowledge of the area’s wild mammals, both terrestrial and marine. This first of three planned volumes covers the northern Neotropics, including southern Central America.
John Eisenberg, a leading researcher of Neotropical fauna, begins the volume with a discussion of historical biogeography and contemporary habitats of the northern Neotropics. Each of the chapters that follow presents a mammalian order, with data for all indigenous species. Eisenberg has provided physical descriptions and summaries of range and habitat for nearly 450 species. For those species that have been studied in the field or in captivity, additional notes on natural history are included. For the larger taxa, field keys to help to identify the specimens. Range maps, line drawings, and color plates supplement the text, further aiding identification.
Throughout the book, Eisenberg provides a larger context for the species descriptions. He comments on the diversity of forms within each order, places the Neotropical species in a worldwide geographical perspective, and reviews taxonomic questions and controversies. At the end of each chapter, an extensive bibliography directs readers to related articles on systematics, behavior, ecology, and evolution. Eisenberg concludes with chapters on speciation events and mammalian community ecology.
No comparable account of South and Central American mammals has ever been published in any language. This volume of Mammals of the Neotropics and the forthcoming companion volumes will be an invaluable reference for students and professionals and will help further the research that is so vital to conservation efforts.
Author:Â John F. Eisenberg
Paperback:Â 550 pages
Company: University Of Chicago Press (1989-05-15)
ISBN:Â 0226195406
List Price:Â $59.00
Amazon Price:Â $42.48
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