"Outgrowth of papers presented at conference marking Columbus' quincentennial and centering around new societies formed as a result of culture contact. Essays focus on precolumbian peoples of the Lesser Antilles and their earliest encounters with Europeans; imperial rivalries and wars and their impact on settlement patterns; and local societies, slavery, trade, and abolition. Highly useful"--Handbook of Latin American Studies, v. 58.

The First Imperial Age explores with subtlety and vigour the origins of Europe's rise to world hegemony in the early modern period, in a survey which brings together a huge range of Geoffrey Scammell's own and other recent research. After a slow start in the 1400s, the pace of European exploration and discovery quickened dramatically. By the end of the period, Europeans in pursuit of Asia and the opportunities encountered en route had determined the outlines of the Africa land mass, discovered and partly subjugated the Americas, opened a sea route to the Far East and established themselves in the great maritime economy of Asia. Europe became a world trader; indigenous people the world over were converted to Christianity; colonies became matters of dispute between European states, and although European knowledge of the worlds they discovered were largely confined to their coastlines, they know enought to feel thay had at last surpassed the deeds of antiquity. Geofrrey Scammell's detached and sceptical view highlights the ambiguities inherent in these triumphs: Europe rose to wealth and power at painful cost to much of the rest of the world, and set in train an enduring legacy of racial tension. The book takes an original approach to its subject. After outlining the salient features of the story, it is organised around broad themes: the reasons for Europe's expansion, how Europeaans could establish themselves in some part of the world and not others, the ways in which they exploited their new possessions; the nature of colonial societies; the influence of Europe on empire; and the nature of imperial experience.

Jews and Judaism played a significant role in the history of the expansion of Europe to the west as well as in the history of the economic, social, and religious development of the New World. They played an important role in the discovery, colonization, and eventually exploitation of the resources of the New World. Alone among the European peoples who came to the Americas in the colonial period, Jews were dispersed throughout the hemisphere; indeed, they were the only cohesive European ethnic or religious group that lived under both Catholic and Protestant regimes, which makes their study particularly fruitful from a comparative perspective. As distinguished from other religious or ethnic minorities, the Jewish struggle was not only against an overpowering and fierce nature but also against the political regimes that ruled over the various colonies of the Americas and often looked unfavorably upon the establishment and tleration of Jewish communities in their own territory. Jews managed to survive and occasionally to flourish against all odds, and their history in the Americas is one of the more fascinating chapters in the early modern history of European expansion.

Beginning with volume 41 (1979), the University of Texas Press became the publisher of the Handbook of Latin American Studies, the most comprehensive annual bibliography in the field. Compiled by the Hispanic Division of the Library of Congress and annotated by a corps of more than 130 specialists in various disciplines, the Handbook alternates from year to year between social sciences and humanities. The Handbook annotates works on Mexico, Central America, the Caribbean and the Guianas, Spanish South America, and Brazil, as well as materials covering Latin America as a whole. Most of the subsections are preceded by introductory essays that serve as biannual evaluations of the literature and research under way in specialized areas. The Handbook of Latin American Studies is the oldest continuing reference work in the field. Lawrence Boudon became the editor in 2000. The subject categories for Volume 58 are as follows: Electronic Resources for the Humanities Art History (including ethnohistory) Literature (including translations from the Spanish and Portuguese) Philosophy: Latin American Thought Music

This volume uses archaeological and documentary evidence to reconstruct daily life at Betty’s Hope plantation on the island of Antigua, one of the largest sugar plantations in the Caribbean. It demonstrates the rich information that the multidisciplinary approach of contemporary historical archaeology can offer when assessing the long-term impacts of sugarcane agriculture on the region and its people. Drawing on ten years of research at the 300-year-old site, the researchers uncover the plantation’s inner workings and its connections to broader historical developments in the Atlantic World. Excavations at the Great House reveal similarities to other British colonial sites, and historical records reveal the owners’ involvement in the Atlantic slave trade and in the trade of rum and other commodities. Artifacts uncovered from the slave quarters—ceramic tokens, repurposed bottle glass, and hundreds of Afro-Antiguan pottery sherds—speak to the agency of enslaved peoples in the face of harsh living conditions. Contributors also use ethnographic field data collected from interviews with contemporary farmers, as well as soil analysis to demonstrate how three centuries of sugarcane monocropping created a complicated legacy of soil depletion. Today tourism has long surpassed sugar as Antigua’s primary economic driver. Looking at visitor exhibits and new technologies for exploring and interpreting the site, the volume discusses best practices in cultural heritage management at Betty’s Hope and other locations that are home to contested historical narratives of a colonial past. A volume in the Florida Museum of Natural History: Ripley P. Bullen Series

Russell Menard argues that the emergence of black slavery in Barbados preceded the rise of sugar. He shows that Barbados was well on its way to becoming a plantation colony and a slave society before sugar emerged as the dominant crop. He sheds light on the origins of the integrated plantation, gang labour, and slave economy.