Book Description
Coinciding with the sixtieth anniversary of Rastafari, this reference book traces the relationship between two intertwined aspects of Jamaican culture: Rastafari and reggae music. As important voices in the ongoing dialogue concerning Jamaica's search for a national identity, Rastafari and reggae have had a significant impact on international music and culture. This work is the first to document and describe these areas for researchers, providing a comprehensive dictionary of terms, people, places, and concepts relevant to Rastafari, reggae music, and their related histories. In a unique collaboration from the American and Jamaican perspectives, Mulvaney and Nelson have supplied annotated references and cross references for written materials, audio recordings, videocassettes, and films that cover the first sixty years of Rastafari and over twenty years of reggae music. The book is comprised of four main sections. The dictionary serves as the focal point for the cross referencing of the entire book and offers entries that are either directly related to Rastafari and reggae or provide a historical context. The discography, which includes 200 entries, represents a cross section of reggae music from 1968 to 1990 and is organized by musician or band name. A small, representative sample of documentary, concert, and narrative fiction videocassettes that address aspects of Rastafari or reggae music are catalogued in the videography, along with selected films. Finally, the bibliography, prepared by Carlos I.H. Nelson, provides a thorough overview of journal and magazine articles, creative works, dissertations, books, interviews, parts of books, reviews, and theses written by and about Rastafarians and reggae musicians. It covers the past importance, present significance, and future legacies of the movement and the music. The work also includes two appendices that list relevant periodicals and representative musicians and bands. Music students and researchers will find Rastafari and Reggae to be a valuable reference source, as will students in Caribbean and cultural studies, communication, history, and anthropology courses. For academic, public, and music library collections, the book will be an important addition. ... Read more

Customer Reviews (1)

A Spectacular Reference Book
Rastafari and Reggae: A Dictionary and Sourcebook is truly just that.It does a great job as a source and reference book.With tons of terms to refer to, he who uses this book will truly be the more knowledgeable on the subject of reggae.Its one big glossary of reggae terms and important people. ... Read more

Book Description
Provides invaluable information about one of the most significant yet least understood new religious movements of the twentieth century. ... Read more

Customer Reviews (2)

Like findin a needle in a haystack
The book is the haystack and the useful content is the needle.
Maybe a little harsh but this book was way too wordy and "scientific" for my taste. when it came down too it however it had very useful and uplifting words, just not enough for me. The author should have supplied a useful content color decoder or something to cut down all the wasted time looking for the needle. Sorry Mr. Johnson-Hill, no intended disrespect. Jah guide jah provide.

most heart cleansed book of our time.
this book leads you into the lifestyle and mind of the rastafari. Clean your heart and allow jah to show the light and salvation. It was the most comprehensive book of our time. If you`ve ever had any questions about the rastafari and Jah works this book is for you. ... Read more

Book Description
Each year, thousands of pilgrims visit the celebrated New Orleans tomb where Marie Laveau is said to lie.They seek her favors or fear her lingering influence.Voodoo Queen: The Spirited Lives of Marie Laveau is the first study of the Laveaus, mother and daughter of the same name, who were two legendary leaders of religious and spiritual traditions many still label as evil.

The Laveaus were free women of color and prominent French-speaking Catholic Creoles.From the 1820s until the 1880s when one died and the other disappeared, gossip, fear, and fierce affection swirled about them.From the heart of the French Quarter, in dance, drumming, song and spirit possession, they ruled the imagination of New Orleans.

How did the two Maries apply their "magical" powers and uncommon business sense to shift the course of love, luck, and the law? The women understood the real crime?they had pitted their spiritual forces against the slave system of the United States. Moses-like, they led their people out of bondage and offered protection and freedom to the community of color, rich white women, enslaved families, and men condemned to hang.

The curse of the Laveau family, however, followed them. Both loved men they could never marry.Both faced down the press and police who stalked them. Both countered the relentless gossip of curses, evil spirits, murders, and infant sacrifice with acts of benevolence.

The book is also a detective story---who is really buried in the famous tomb in the oldest "city of the dead" in New Orleans?What scandals did the Laveau family intend to keep buried there forever? By what sleight of hand did free people of color lose their cultural identity when Americans purchased Louisiana and imposed racial apartheid upon Creole creativity? The book brings the improbable testimonies of saints, spirits, and never-before printed eyewitness accounts of their ceremonies and magical crafts to the lives of the two Marie Laveaus, leaders of a major, indigenous American religion. ... Read more

Customer Reviews (14)

meh...
Another reviewer here has stated that the author should perhaps have written a historical fiction influenced by Leveau, like what Atwood did with Grace Marks in "Alias Grace".

To be honset, I wouldn't have read the book then either.That's because I can't read this book without feeling... well... search inside and read a brief excerpt.The writing reads like a freshman comp paper.I can't take it seriously because the author's put so much fluff into it.

Check it out for yourself, but read the excert before you go out and actually blow some scratch on this book.Who exactly is she qouting in that first chapter?

Bah... if you're interested in Marie Leveau, a topic worthy of interest; then I recomend Long's investigation into the who Marie Leveau was.It too, has it's short-comings, but I assure you that it is more worth your time than this.

voodoo queen the spirited lives of marie laveau
Great book , loved it, thought it was wonderful

A book full of spirit
Many people have fallen in love with the women who is known as Marie Laveau.Not much is truely known about her, but Martha Ward does an excellent job in giving it's readers an inside look at the "Spirited Life of Marie Laveau".This book is a must for anyone interested in the subject of New Orleans folklore.

The BEST Book you will ever read on "The Widow Paris"
Martha Ward deserves great kudos for this incredible work of love and devotion, Finally bringing the enigma of "Marie Laveau", BOTH of the Marie Laveau's to us in this day and age where she is so very much needed again to Bless her 21st Century Children now as a bona fide "Lwa"!Excellent!!!May the Good Mother Bless Martha Ward, And ALL of Us!So Be It!

Disappointingly Unreliable and Insensitive
I have always taken great interest in the history of my home town, New Orleans.I read whatever I can find about the corky characters that made this city so unique, and Marie Laveau has always been one of my favorites. Unfortunately, this book was a terrible disappointment.

Much of the insights about Marie Laveau in this book are not new but drawn from other sources that Martha Ward, the author, often fails to acknowledge and what is actually new here contains considerable mistakes on nearly every other page or is blurred with unsubstantiated fiction.Ward also displays little familiarity with Voodoo practices and Catholicism. To make matters worse, Ward makes painfully racist statements such as the best hotels in town "held tasteful slave auctions in their carpeted lobbies" (p.80). In my view, there is nothing "tasteful" about a horrendous ordeal like that, at least not for the men, women, and children who ended up on the auction block. Sadly, Ward, a white woman from Oklahoma, identifies here with the perspective of the slave buyers who indeed must have considered fine hotels to be a more "tasteful" environment than the dingy slave pens filled with stench.

The abundance of fiction and incorrect data makes me wonder whether Ward should have considered writing a historical novel instead, because her passion seems to be in the fiction not in caring about complex historical data. That way it would have been more honest and less confusing for the reader.As it is, Ward's book is both entertaining and an easy read, but should not be mistaken for a meticulously researched serious academic work despite the fact that it appeared in a scholarly press.Even major plots in this volume cannot be backed up historically.For more reliable sources on Marie Laveau see for instance Carolyn Long, Spiritual Merchants, and Ina Fandrich, The Mysterious Voodoo Queen, Marie Laveaux.
... Read more

Customer Reviews (11)

VouDou is not Voodoo
Unlike some of the other reviews, I had been there as Rod visited the churches we attended and witnessed the Religion at work. He's about as authentic as it gets for someone not IN the Religion as I am.
His concentration on one particular priestess is focused. Reverend Lorita Honeycutt Gamble is the embodiment of what the mystery is about. She is my madrina.
Rod captured her personality and spirit in as lively a story as possible for an Outsider.
By putting this in context: the survival of African beliefs in the New World colonies under brutal slavery is a recognition of the road that so many have traveled to arrive at freedom. That Voudou is a living tradition and belief system still functioning is a miracle to its power. It is the black snake under Blues music as it spread across the country as from New Orleans. Here is a true story and Rod has done it well.

Don't bother
If you know anything at all about voodoo, or voudou, this book will amaze you with it's focus on Santeria and/or it's focus on African voudou. Were this your first reading on the topic, you would, in all likelihood, not read anyting else. While Santeria is popular in this country, it pales in comparison to Haitian voodoo.

That having been said, his adventures in New Orleans are entertaining. It just lacks most of the facts about real American Voudou!

a travel narrative that hits its mark
It's true, as two previous reviewers have noted in panning this book, that American Voudou is neither musicology nor a definitive academic treatise on voudou. But come on, folks -- that's not what it was meant to be. This is apersonal travel narrative into a strange subculture that most Americans,white or black, don't know exists. Davis takes us, among other places, to aSouth Carolina village that is ruled by a king and where polygamy ispracticed openly. Wherever he takes us, Davis's writing is vivid,clear-eyed, and compelling. He treats the voudou religion with respect. Onits own terms, his book succeeds admirably.

Very disappointing (though not a complete waste of time)
This is a story book about a series of road trips one man made in order to chronicle a set of interesting characters who live in New Orleans, but it is hardly a book that introduces you to "Voudou in America."Thejournalist got so caught up in the personality of one of the women hefollowed around that he began to absorb her likes and dislikes.The worstpart of the book is the writer's insistence on pitting Black AmericanVoudou practitioners against Cuban/Caribbean Santeria practitioners.Ithink he just got too caught up in the personality politics of his subjectsto be objective in the end.

Basically, good for stories and to get somegeneral insight from someone who is, to say the very least, not prejudicedagainst the religion -- BUT just take a few notes, jot down a few names(like "Luisah Teish" and "Ava Kay Jones") and moveon...

Fascinating book
What a great book! The subtitle says it all: "a journey into a hidden world."Davis not only explores the world of voudou, santeria and other incarnations of African religions that are hiding in plain sight frommost white Americans-an utterly fascinating realm--but he also provides anengaging perspective on another complex culture: the American South.Asidefrom its obvious academic worth, the book is a totally entertainingtravelogue from someone who really knows how to write. ... Read more

Book Description
Numerous eyewitness accounts described New Orleans' famous Voodoo Queen Marie Laveaux as "the most powerful woman there is". As a person of African descent and a woman she was barred from holding public offices according to Antebellum United States laws. Nevertheless, it appears that it was she who ruled over the city, not the municipal authorities.

This study investigates the emergence of powerful female leadership in New Orleans' Voodoo tradition. It provides a careful examination of the cultural, historical, economic, demographic and socio-political factors that contributed both to the feminization of this religious culture and its strong female leaders. The quintessential example for this phenomenon of female power was Voodoo Queen Marie Laveaux, the most prominent and most influential Voodoo leader in the history of the city. She thus receives special attention in this analysis. ... Read more

Customer Reviews (4)

An important addition to the literature
This is a well-researched book and an important addition to the literature.The reader will learn much about not only the title subject, but the world in which she lived.The author's careful scholarship is a welcome correction to the haze that tends to surround the subject of voodoo in New Orleans.

Marie Laveaux Personalized
Dr. Fandrich did a great job in presenting a New Orleans legend in a manner that was both knowledgable and personal.I got to know Ms. Laveaux on a personal level and to understand her strength, character and power.Dr. Fandrich did a marvelous job in making the connection between the role of Africa in the worship of deities and the African diasporic religion of Voodoo as it was practiced in Haiti and then in New Orleans by Ms. Laveaux.I greatly enjoyed this book and it has inspired me in ways that words just cannot express.I would like to thank the ancestors for inspiring Dr. Fandrich to put the story of Marie Laveaux into context for others to utilize and enjoy.

Finally a Smart Book on Marie Laveaux
This is by far the best book I have read on the subject of Marie Laveaux.Dr. Fandrich not only captures the historical context of New Orleans before and during Marie Laveux's lifetime she also captures and explains the spiritual basis for New Orleans Voodoo.I find the book to be refreshing and informative.This book is full of historical information but at the same time isvery interesting and is a fast read.This book is bound to be seen as the most important book on the subject of Marie Laveaux.Finally a book that provided me with information about questions I have been searching for in regards to this mysterious woman.Thank you Dr. Fandrich!!!

Best Source for Info on Marie Laveaux!
Dr. Fandrich has produced the first truly valuable study of Marie Laveaux for students and scholars of religion.She skillfully analyzes the historical fiction and popular legends surrounding New Orleans Voodoo and its most (in)famous Queen while explaining the roots of these myths through an explanation of Voodoo's development and history.Fandrich's personal research in the archives of New Orleans certainly paid of for her.Her hard work uncovered Laveaux's birth certificate (long thought lost) and thus gives a new and definite historicity to her subject.Instead of reading like a popular New Orleans tour book, this serious analysis of Marie Laveaux's life and the society that gave rise to her legend has a solid methodology.Both interesting and carefully researched down to the smallest detail, this book is a must have for any serious student of New Orleans, Voodoo, and African-American/Afro-Caribbean religions. ... Read more

Book Description
In this wide-ranging book Paul Christopher Johnson explores the changing, hidden face of the Afro-Brazilian indigenous religion of Candomble.Despite its importance in Brazilian society, Candomble has received far less attention than its sister religions Vodou and Santeria.Johnson seeks to fill this void by offering a comprehensive look at the development, beliefs, and practices of Candomble and exploring its transformation from a secret society of slaves--hidden, persecuted, and marginalized--to a public religion that is very much a part of Brazilian culture. Johnson traces this historical shift and locates the turning point in the creation of Brazilian national identity and a public sphere in the first half of the twentieth century.His major focus is on the ritual practice of secrecy in Candomble. Like Vodou and Santeria and the African Yoruba religion from which they are descended, Candomble features a hierarchic series of initiations, with increasing access to secret knowledge at each level. As Johnson shows, the nature and uses of secrecy evolved with the religion. First, secrecy was essential to a society that had to remain hidden from authorities. Later, when Candomble became known and actively persecuted, its secrecy became a form of resistance as well as an exotic hidden power desired by elites. Finally, as Candomble became a public religion and a vital part of Brazilian culture, the debate increasingly turned away from the secrets themselves and toward their possessors.It is speech about secrets, and not the content of those secrets, that is now most important in building status, legitimacy and power in Candomble.Offering many first hand accounts of the rites and rituals of contemporary Candomble, this book provides insight into this influential but little-studied group, while at the same time making a valuable contribution to our understanding of the relationship between religion and society. ... Read more

Customer Reviews (3)

Excellent work
This is a fine piece of scholarship, but it is just that: a scholarly work.This is written for academics and very serious students of African diasporic religious traditions.

Good but dense
This book represents a significant and thought provoking review of the history and social context of Candomble. I recommend it highly to any one who is already rather versed in the subject. It is not, however, written in language that is widely accessible to the average reader.Any college professors out there should think twice or thrice before assigning it to undergraduates, unless you wish to assign a dictionary as well!It is too densely written for the average person, something I consider a real crime in a book that is otherwise very good.

A wonderful addition to any library!!!
One of the best books that I could find in English on Candomble.

The book is an amazing piece of scholastic work conducted by a once relectant initiate of Nago-Ketu Nation and surveys the history, practices, theology, ritualism and cosmology of Candomble and the role of the Terreiro in historical and contemporary Brazilian society.

There are many things that I had issues with.....the title of the book being one of them.....but by far, it is the most substantial piece of work that has been published in English targeted in a non-sensationalist way for the non-brazilian public.

This thought provoking piece of work has led me to look internally and externally for answers to questions raised in this forum, and has also allowed me to formulate my own questions......

In any case, the book is worth adding to any library and especially of value to those individuals interested in African Based Diasporic religion/spirituality in Brazil. ... Read more

Book Description
Rasta and Resistance is a study of the Rastafarian movement in all it's manifestations, from its evolution in the hills of Jamaica to its present manisfestations in the streets of Birmingham and Shashamane Settlement in Ethiopia.It traces the cultural, political and spiritual sources of this movement of resistance, hightlighting the quest for change among an oppressed people.This book serves to break the intellectual traditions which placed the stamp of millenarianism on Rasta. ... Read more

Customer Reviews (3)

Rastafari as a Marxist/Political Movement
This book is as much about Marxist theory as it is about Rastafarianism, which isn't necessarily a bad thing unless you're not as interested in the former as in the latter.Rodney's objective is to couch the origins of theRastafarian movement in that of proletariat class struggle.However, heprovides little evidence to demonstrate a definitive link between the two. Rodney convincingly shows that Rasta developed as a means for thedescendants of African slaves to positively identify with Africa and herpeople, as opposed to the white king of England.Insofar as this movementdeveloped among blacks who constituted the mass of Jamaica's populace andwho were working-farming poor - than Rasta may be considered a proletarianmovement.However, Rodney provides no evidence that the early Rastaleaders consciously understood their struggle as a "class struggle" as thatphrase is understood in the Marxist lexicon. The evidence suggests onlythat they sought to empower the mass of "sufferers" by seeking topositively identify with Africa and the African King - Haile Selassie I. The discussion of Rastafarianism in a political, social, economic andcultural context is so pervasive as to make one forget that practitionersconsider Rastafari a religion.Indeed, Rodney provides no information onthe central tenants, philosophy or rites of Rastafari as a religion. Rodney seeks to dismiss those Rasta who believe in the divinity of Selassieas misguided victims of Coptic propaganda.This conclusion reinforcesRodney's objective to posit Rastafari as a viable political movement forchange and Rodney provides enough evidence to make this conclusioncredible.Moreover, showing the political aspects of Rastafari allowsthose who may not necessarily believe in the divinity of Selassie to becomeinvolved in the movement. Despite the Marxist overtones and lack ofreligious information, the book still deserves a good rating.Independentof the Marxist analysis the book provides great factual and historicalinformation about the resistance of Africans and their descendents againstslavery, colonialism and neocolonialism in the Caribbean and crediblydepicts Rasta as a form of resistance.Indeed, if you aren't seeking abetter understanding of Rastafari as a religion than this book is wellworth the money.In this vein of resistance Marcus Garvey is prominentlyfeatured.The book contains an excellent chapter on the role of reggaemusic in spreading the Rasta's culture of resistance and ends with athought-provoking discussion of repatriation, ultimately concluding thatAfricans and their descendants must struggle to change their conditionswherever they find themselves.

The Century's Most Provocative Historiographer!!!
I had the privilege of "awakening" under the masterful stewardship of Dr. Horace Campbell.He is no longer teaching in Tanzania, but spent many years cultivating and producing great thinkers in Zimbabwe,where I met him.Since then, he has continued his tenureship statesidereturning to Syracuse University in 1996.Exposing yourself to an essay,article or book by Dr. Campbell will provide interesting and compellingrealizations of African and Caribbean political histories.

A Very Good Book On The Black History Of The Carribean
History teaches a lot about the Black struggles here in the United States, but you hardly find any books about slavery and Black struggles in the Carribean and South America. Rasta and Resistance talks about thebeginnings of the slave trade, slavery in Brazil, the Haitian Revolutionand Toussaint L'Ouverture, Walter Rodney, Rastafarianism, ska and reggaemusic, and Black struggles in Great Britain. A great book for those wantingto learn more about the lost chapters of slavery and Black struggles. ... Read more

Book Description

Black Atlantic Religion illuminates the mutual transformation of African and African-American cultures, highlighting the example of the Afro-Brazilian Candomblé religion. This book contests both the recent conviction that transnationalism is new and the long-held supposition that African culture endures in the Americas only among the poorest and most isolated of black populations. In fact, African culture in the Americas has most flourished among the urban and the prosperous, who, through travel, commerce, and literacy, were well exposed to other cultures. Their embrace of African religion is less a "survival," or inert residue of the African past, than a strategic choice in their circum-Atlantic, multicultural world.

With counterparts in Nigeria, the Benin Republic, Haiti, Cuba, Trinidad, and the United States, Candomblé is a religion of spirit possession, dance, healing, and blood sacrifice. Most surprising to those who imagine Candomblé and other such religions as the products of anonymous folk memory is the fact that some of this religion's towering leaders and priests have been either well-traveled writers or merchants, whose stake in African-inspired religion was as much commercial as spiritual. Morever, they influenced Africa as much as Brazil. Thus, for centuries, Candomblé and its counterparts have stood at the crux of enormous transnational forces.

Vividly combining history and ethnography, Matory spotlights a so-called "folk" religion defined not by its closure or internal homogeneity but by the diversity of its connections to classes and places often far away. Black Atlantic Religion sets a new standard for the study of transnationalism in its subaltern and often ancient manifestations.