This is a collection of essays on the history of Christianity and the role of the Church in the processes of colonization and decolonization in the Caribbean. They look at the relationships that existed among slavery, colonialism and Catholicism.

This volume describes the English and English Creole of Trinidad and Tobago. Sources from the early 19th through late 20th centuries are gathered from a wide range of materials: novels, editorials, advertisements, cartoons, proverbs, newspaper articles, plays, lyrics of traditional songs and calypsos, and oral interviews. Many of the older texts are now made easily accessible for the first time. The introduction includes descriptions of the historical background, the sound system, grammar and vocabulary, speech styles, social and linguistic interaction of Creole and English, and implications for education and spelling. The older sources demonstrate much closer links to other Caribbean English Creoles than previously recognized. The texts and recordings of oral interviews are invaluable resources for researchers and teachers in linguistics, Creole Studies, Caribbean studies, literature, anthropology and history.

Reggae's influence can be heard in the popular music of nations in a variety of continents. In Dubwise, Klive Walker takes a fresh look at Bob Marley's global impact, specifically his legacy in the Caribbean diaspora. While considering Marley's status as an international reggae icon, Walker also discusses the vital contributions to reggae culture authored by other important Jamaican innovators such as poet Louise Bennett, hand drummer Oswald ''Count Ossie'' Williams, jazz saxophonist Joe Harriott, ska trombonist Don Drummond and singer Dennis Brown.

Traces the history of the Rastafarian movement, discussing the impact it has had on Jamaican society, its successful expansion to North America, the British Isles, and Africa, its role as a dominant cultural force in the world, and other related topics.

The Steelband Movement examines the dramatic transformation of pan from a Carnival street music into a national art and symbol in Trinidad and Tobago. By focusing on pan as a cultural process, Stephen Stuempfle demonstrates how the struggles and achievements of the steelband movement parallel the problems and successes of building a nation. Stuempfle explores the history of the steelband from its emergence around 1940 as an assemblage of diverse metal containers to today's immense orchestra of high-precision instruments with bell-like tones. Drawing on interviews with different generations of pan musicians (including the earliest), a wide array of archival material, and field observations, the author traces the growth of the movement in the context of the grass-roots uprisings of the 1930s and 1940s, the American presence in Trinidad in World War II, the nationalist movement of the postwar period, the aftermath of independence from Britain in 1962, the Black Power protests and the oil boom of the 1970s, and the recession of recent years. The Steelband Movement suggests that the history of pan has involved a series of negotiations between different ethnic groups, socioeconomic classes, and social organizations, all of which have attempted to define and use the music according to their own values and interests. This drama provides a window into the ways in which Trinidadians have constructed various visions of a national identity.

One of the most salient issues in Caribbean studies is the region's linguistic and cultural fragmentation as a result of European colonization. More than five centuries later, the islands and American countries whose shores touch the Caribbean Sea still echo such maladies. The title of this book is a call towards unity, a unity that, in the words of Barbadian poet, historian and critic Kamau Brathwaite, "is submarine." In the past, nations' borders were established based on the distance a cannon ball was able to cover when fired from land out to sea. It is time to go beyond the cannon ball distances out into uncharted territories, beyond the canon, and, thus, beyond the cannon's range.This book features a selection of essays presented at the fifth annual Caribbean Without Borders conference at the University of Puerto Rico, Río Piedras. It critically delves into the fields of linguistics, history, literature, philosophy, politics, feminism, cultural studies, music, film, and art, among many others, as a means to re-visit, re-view, re-envision, re-read, re-interpret, and thus re-create a Caribbean aesthetics that looks to submarine unity, a unity that defies spatial, temporal, and social borders. The book conveys the limitless nature of the Caribbean and its rich culture, making it an appealing transdisciplinary source for a multidisciplinary academic audience.