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.

The 27th edition of this reference on the Middle East additioinally includes all the Central Asian states and provides both an analytical overview of the region and specific data for each of the 32 countries. Introductory chapters cover regional issues, such as: the growth of Islamic banking and its implications for the wider economy; the impact of ex-Soviet countries on international oil and gas production; and the significance of the Middle East's contribution to international terrorism.

A symbol of Trinidadian culture, the steelband has made an extraordinary transformation since its origins-from junk metal to steel orchestra, and from disparaged underclass pastime to Trinidad and Tobago's national instrument. Now, Shannon Dudley gives the first discerning look at the musical thinking that ignited this transformation, and the way it articulates with Afro-Trinidadian tradition, carnival, colonial authority, and nationalist politics. Music from behind the Bridge tells the story of the steelband from the point of view of musicians who overcame disadvantages of poverty and prejudice with their extraordinary ambition. Literally referring to the poor neighborhoods nestled in the hills bordering Port of Spain to the East, "Behind the Bridge" is also a metaphor for conditions of social disadvantage and cultural resistance that shaped the steelband movement in the various Afro-Trinidadian communities where it first took root. The book further explores the implications of the steelband's "nationalization" in post-independence Trinidad and Tobago, and contemporary steelband musicians' preoccupation with the formally adjudicated annual Panorama competition. In discussing the intersection of musical thinking, festivity, and politics, this book connects important questions about the history of the steelband to general questions about the relation between popular culture and nationalism.

From its first appearance in 1939 with a group of men knocking on pots and pans to the 1951 Trinidad All-Steel Percussion Orchestra (TASPO), steelband has fascinated the world. Relying largely on oral histories, this work investigates and documents the different technical, musical and organizational steps by which the steelband movement was born and grew to maturity.This study is a radical break with the approach to cultural creativity in general and music of the African diaspora in particular, emphasizing the role of individual agency, microsociology and aesthetic values. This contrasts with the ?resistance? school of thought, which views music as an automatic reaction to oppression rather than a deliberate attempt to satisfy aesthetic needs and impulses.The minute biographical and psychological details provide a unique theory of creolization and chart its relationship to African retentions, based on empirical data. This authoritative study will appeal to both the general reader interested in the origins of steelband and to scholars concerned with the creolization of African and European cultures and Caribbean creativity.