This book explores the links among ecology, disease, and international politics in the context of the Greater Caribbean - the landscapes lying between Surinam and the Chesapeake - in the seventeenth ...through early twentieth centuries. Ecological changes made these landscapes especially suitable for the vector mosquitoes of yellow fever and malaria, and these diseases wrought systematic havoc among armies and would-be settlers. Because yellow fever confers immunity on survivors of the disease, and because malaria confers resistance, these diseases played partisan roles in the struggles for empire and revolution, attacking some populations more severely than others. In particular, yellow fever and malaria attacked newcomers to the region, which helped keep the Spanish Empire Spanish in the face of predatory rivals in the seventeenth and early eighteenth centuries. In the late eighteenth and through the nineteenth century, these diseases helped revolutions to succeed by decimating forces sent out from Europe to prevent them.
The Caribbean Campbell, Chris; Niblett, Michael
06/2017, Volume:
18
eBook
Bringing together the work of literary critics, social scientists, activists, and creative writers, this edited collection explores the complex relationships between environmental change, political ...struggle, and cultural production in the Caribbean. It ranges across the archipelago, with essays covering such topics as the literary representation of tropical storms and hurricanes, the cultural fallout from the Haitian earthquake of 2010, struggles over the rainforest in Guyana, and the role of colonial travel narratives in the reorganization of landscapes. The collection marks an important contribution to the fields of Caribbean studies, postcolonial studies, and ecocriticism. Through its deployment of the concept of ‘world-ecology’, it offers up a new angle of vision on the interconnections between aesthetics, ecology, and politics. The volume seeks to grasp these categories not as discrete (if overlapping) entities, but rather as differentiated moments within a single historical process. The ‘social’ changes through which the Caribbean has developed have always involved changes in the relationship between humans and the rest of nature; and these changes have long been entangled with the emergence of new kinds of cultural production. The contributors to this collection provide a series of unique insights into the relationship between aesthetic practice and specific ecological processes and pressure-points in the region. More than ever Caribbean writers and artists are engaging explicitly with environmental concerns in their work; this volume responds to that trend by bringing literary and cultural criticism into sustained dialogue with debates around local, national, and regional ecological issues.
The anatomical and physiological substrata of eye–hand coordina- tion during reaching were studied through combined anatomical and physiological techniques. The association connections of parietal ...areas V6A and PEc, and those of dorso-rostral (F7) and dorso-caudal (F2) premotor cortex were studied in monkeys, after physiological characterization of the parietal regions where retrograde tracers were injected. The results show that parieto-occipital area V6A is reciprocally connected with F7, and receives a smaller projection from F2. Local parietal projections to V6A arise from areas MIP and, to a lesser extent, 7m, PEa and PEc. On the contrary, parietal area PEc is strongly and reciprocally connected with the part of F2 located close to the pre-central dimple (pre-CD). Local parietal projections to PEc come from a distributed network, including PEa, MIP, PEci and, to a lesser extent, 7m, V6A, 7a and MST. Premotor area F7 receives parietal projections mainly from 7m and V6A, and local frontal projections mainly from F2. On the contrary, premotor area F2 in the pre-CD zone receives parietal inputs from PEc and, to a lesser extent, PEci, while in the peri-arcuate zone F2 receives parietal projections from PEa and MIP. Local frontal projections to F2 pre-CD mostly stem from F4, and, to a lesser extent, from F7 and F3, and CMAd; those addressed to peri-arcuate zone of F2 arise mainly from F5 and, to a lesser extent, from F7, F4, dorsal (CMAd) and ventral (CMAv) cingulate motor areas, pre-supplementary (F6) and supplementary (F3) motor areas. The distribution of association cells in both frontal and parietal cortex was characterized through a spectral analysis that revealed an arrangement of these cells in the form of bands, composed of cell clusters, or ‘columns’. The reciprocal connections linking parietal and frontal cortex might explain the presence of visually related and eye-position signals in premotor cortex, as well as the influence of information about arm position and movement direction in V6A and PEc. The association connections identified in this study might carry sensory as well motor information that presumably provides a basis for a re-entrant signaling. This might be necessary to match retinal-, eye- and hand-related information underlying eye–hand coordination during reaching.
Islands at the Crossroads Curet, L. Antonio; Hauser, Mark W; Armstrong, Douglas V ...
2011, 2011-07-15, 20110101
eBook
This volume looks beyond cultural boundaries and colonial frontiers to explore the complex and layered ways in which both distant and more intimate sociocultural, political, and economic interactions ...have shaped Caribbean societies from 7000 years ago to recent times.
At the foot of the snow-capped Cascade Mountains on the forested shores of Puget Sound, Seattle is set in a location of spectacular natural beauty. Boosters of the city have long capitalized on this ...splendor, recently likening it to the fairytale capital of L. Frank Baum'sThe Wizard of Oz, the Emerald City. But just as Dorothy, Toto, and their traveling companions discover a darker reality upon entering the green gates of the imaginary Emerald City, those who look more closely at Seattle's landscape will find that it reveals a history marked by environmental degradation and urban inequality.
This book explores the role of nature in the development of the city of Seattle from the earliest days of its settlement to the present. Combining environmental history, urban history, and human geography, Matthew Klingle shows how attempts to reshape nature in and around Seattle have often ended not only in ecological disaster but also social inequality. The price of Seattle's centuries of growth and progress has been paid by its wildlife, including the famous Pacific salmon, and its poorest residents. Klingle proposes a bold new way of understanding the interdependence between nature and culture, and he argues for what he calls an "ethic of place." Using Seattle as a compelling case study, he offers important insights for every city seeking to live in harmony with its natural landscape.
Communal Intimacy and the Violence of Politics explores the notoriously brutal Philippine war on drugs from below. Steffen Bo Jensen and Karl Hapal examine how the war on drugs folded itself into ...communal and intimate spheres in one Manila neighborhood, Bagong Silang. Police killings have been regular occurrences since the birth of Bagong Silang. Communal Intimacy and the Violence of Politics shows that although the drug war was introduced from the outside, it fit into and perpetuated already existing gendered and generational structures. In Bagong Silang, the war on drugs implicated local structures of authority, including a justice system that had always been deeply integrated into communal relations. The ways in which the war on drugs transformed these intimate relations between the state and its citizens, and between neighbors, may turn out to be the most lasting impact of Duterte's infamously violent policies.
For most of the twentieth century, Detroit was a symbol of American industrial might, a place of entrepreneurial and technical ingenuity where the latest consumer inventions were made available to ...everyone through the genius of mass production. Today, Detroit is better known for its dwindling population, moribund automobile industry, and alarmingly high murder rate. InDriving Detroit, author George Galster, a fifth-generation Detroiter and internationally known urbanist, sets out to understand how the city has come to represent both the best and worst of what cities can be, all within the span of a half century. Galster invites the reader to travel with him along the streets and into the soul of this place to grasp fully what drives the Motor City. With a scholar's rigor and a local's perspective, Galster uncovers why metropolitan Detroit's cultural, commercial, and built landscape has been so radically transformed. He shows how geography, local government structure, and social forces created a housing development system that produced sprawl at the fringe and abandonment at the core. Galster argues that this system, in tandem with the region's automotive economic base, has chronically frustrated the population's quest for basic physical, social, and psychological resources. These frustrations, in turn, generated numerous adaptations-distrust, scapegoating, identity politics, segregation, unionization, and jurisdictional fragmentation-that collectively leave Detroit in an uncompetitive and unsustainable position. Partly a self-portrait, in which Detroiters paint their own stories through songs, poems, and oral histories,Driving Detroitoffers an intimate, insightful, and perhaps controversial explanation for the stunning contrasts-poverty and plenty, decay and splendor, despair and resilience-that characterize the once mighty city.
Kristen Block examines the entangled histories of Spain and England in the Caribbean during the long seventeenth century, focusing on colonialism's two main goals: the search for profit and the call ...to Christian dominance. Using the stories of ordinary people, Block illustrates how engaging with the powerful rhetoric and rituals of Christianity was central to survival. Isobel Criolla was a runaway slave in Cartagena who successfully lobbied the Spanish governor not to return her to an abusive mistress. Nicolas Burundel was a French Calvinist who served as henchman to the Spanish governor of Jamaica before his arrest by the Inquisition for heresy. Henry Whistler was an English sailor sent to the Caribbean under Oliver Cromwell's plan for holy war against Catholic Spain. Yaff and Nell were slaves who served a Quaker plantation owner, Lewis Morris, in Barbados. Seen from their on-the-ground perspective, the development of modern capitalism, race, and Christianity emerges as a story of negotiation, contingency, humanity, and the quest for community. Ordinary Lives in the Early Caribbean works in both a comparative and an integrative Atlantic world frame, drawing on archival sources from Spain, England, Barbados, Colombia, and the United States. It pushes the boundaries of how historians read silences in the archive, asking difficult questions about how self-censorship, anxiety, and shame have shaped the historical record. The book also encourages readers to expand their concept of religious history beyond a focus on theology, ideals, and pious exemplars to examine the communal efforts of pirates, smugglers, slaves, and adventurers who together shaped the Caribbean's emerging moral economy.
MEXICO MEGACITY Pick, James B; Butler, Edgar W
01/1997
eBook
Geographic information systems & spatial analysis are drawn on to describe, analyze, & compare the growth, change, & spatial patterns of different districts & areas of Mexico City, based on data on ...economics, population, & housing gathered for the US-Mexico Database Project from public documents. Particular attention is paid to patterns of urbanization, marriage, fertility, health & mortality rates, migration, environmental & housing concerns, social characteristics, & the relationship between the labor force & corporate structure. Mexico City is divided into 35 distinct spatial clusters that fall into four broad metropolitan areas: an urban core, an inner ring, an expansion zone, & poverty regions. The urban core, the central business district of the city, is surrounded by an inner ring of several zones: zones of maturity, generally of good, but older residences; & zones in situ, which started out with modest housing, but have moved through accretion toward maturity. An expansion zone & poverty regions compose the outer rings of the city. The 1978 national urban economic development plan -- which had as its goal the redistribution of population away from Mexico City, Monterey, & Guadalajara by concentrating industries in different priority zones -- is briefly assessed; its implementation requires adequate evaluation & feedback mechanisms for future adjustment. The plan must also recognize the emerging trend toward more participatory democracy at the local level. A preface accompanies 13 Chpts. 68 Tables, 62 Figures, 148 Maps, 1 Appendix. D.M. Smith
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