The weekly source of African American political and entertainment news.

This is the story of organized crime's penetration of the islands and the corruption of its high officials during the time The Bahamas become politically independent of Great Britain. It describes secret U.S. Internal Revenue Service operations aimed at American criminals involved in Bahamian-based tax scams and similar crimes. Block paints a devastating picture of a symbiotic relationship among off-shore tax havens in The Bahamas, sophisticated American criminals, and complacent public officials in the United States. During the 1960s and 1970s, the I.R.S. launched major investigations into American organized crime and the subterranean economy of The Bahamas. Block's access to the private papers of many of the key players in these affairs has given him a unique perspective. He has uncovered details of crime, corruption, and bureaucratic infighting within and among the U.S. Treasury and Justice Departments that have been largely unrecognized by previous researchers. Block shows how important links in the international traffic in cocaine were forged in the Bahamas, in full view of American officials. Masters of Paradise raises major questions about American law enforcement officials' commitment to fighting complex international crime during the 1960s and the 1970s. While there have been other studies of tax havens, money laundering, and offshore investigations, Block's access to information and his grasp of its meaning is unique. Professionals interested in the history and sociology of organized crime and the underground economy will find this book eye-opening. General readers interested in organized crime and political corruption will find it absorbing.

A chilling and fascinating expose of how one trillion dollars in annual drug revenues is laundered through banks in the U.S. and abroad. A leading authority on banking and money laundering reveals a sophisticated underground economy which links drug cartels, terrorists, and governments in illegal enterprises.

The present work concludes the important and monumental undertaking of Islanders in the Stream: A History of the Bahamian People, creating the most thorough and comprehensive history yet written of a Caribbean country and its people. In the first volume Michael Craton and Gail Saunders traced the developments of a unique archipelagic nation from aboriginal times to the period just before emancipation. This long-awaited second volume offers a description and interpretation of the social developments of the Bahamas in the years from 1830 to the present. Volume Two divides this period into three chronological sections, dealing first with adjustments to emancipation by former masters and former slaves between 1834 and 1900, followed by a study of the slow process of modernization between 1900 and 1973 that combines a systematic study of the stimulus of social change, a candid examination of current problems, and a penetrating but sympathetic analysis of what makes the Bahamas and Bahamians distinctive in the world. This work is an eminent product of the New Social History, intended for Bahamians, others interested in the Bahamas, and scholars alike. It skillfully interweaves generalizations and regional comparisons with particular examples, drawn from travelers' accounts, autobiographies, private letters, and the imaginative reconstruction of official dispatches and newspaper reports. Lavishly illustrated with contemporary photographs and original maps, it stands as a model for forthcoming histories of similar small ex-colonial nations in the region.

EBONY is the flagship magazine of Johnson Publishing. Founded in 1945 by John H. Johnson, it still maintains the highest global circulation of any African American-focused magazine.