On a small Caribbean island, Will Mattison controls everything, even the death and interment of his son-in-law, Charles Collier. Ava Collier, Charless mom, arrives on the island for the funeral and soon understands that she must stay to uncover the truth about her sons death and reclaim his ashes from Mattisons three-hundred-year-old sugar mill. Allies emerge to aid Ava in her questa Rasta boardwalk bum, an aboriginal mystic in the rainforest, a crusading radio-station owner, and Anole, a dark young man named for a climbing lizard. What Ava learns from these islanders and others will change her forever, and the sugar mill becomes her powerful symbol of endurance.
The three stories that follow mean to speak to the head and heart. They are the first in a series of stories Mark and Alexandra will produce in the coming years. As you read, keep in mind that the “sugar chair” is not a thing; it is a way. It’s a way of helping ourselves and our children slow this crazy world down, see clearer through our own eyes and the eyes of others, and own and act on our strategies for “sweetening things up.” Each story focuses on a certain audience: Littles (3-8 years old), Middles (8-12 years old), and Olders (12 years old and up). Our thinking is that Olders should read all three, Middles the first two, and Littles the first one. But in the end, you decide what’s right for you and your crew. We hope you enjoy!
In the late 1630s, lured by the promise of the New World, Andrea Stuart’s earliest known maternal ancestor, George Ashby, set sail from England to settle in Barbados. He fell into the life of a sugar plantation owner by mere chance, but by the time he harvested his first crop, a revolution was fully under way: the farming of sugar cane, and the swiftly increasing demands for sugar worldwide, would not only lift George Ashby from abject poverty and shape the lives of his descendants, but it would also bind together ambitious white entrepreneurs and enslaved black workers in a strangling embrace. Stuart uses her own family story—from the seventeenth century through the present—as the pivot for this epic tale of migration, settlement, survival, slavery and the making of the Americas. As it grew, the sugar trade enriched Europe as never before, financing the Industrial Revolution and fuelling the Enlightenment. And, as well, it became the basis of many economies in South America, played an important part in the evolution of the United States as a world power and transformed the Caribbean into an archipelago of riches. But this sweet and hugely profitable trade—“white gold,” as it was known—had profoundly less palatable consequences in its precipitation of the enslavement of Africans to work the fields on the islands and, ultimately, throughout the American continents. Interspersing the tectonic shifts of colonial history with her family’s experience, Stuart explores the interconnected themes of settlement, sugar and slavery with extraordinary subtlety and sensitivity. In examining how these forces shaped her own family—its genealogy, intimate relationships, circumstances of birth, varying hues of skin—she illuminates how her family, among millions of others like it, in turn transformed the society in which they lived, and how that interchange continues to this day. Shifting between personal and global history, Stuart gives us a deepened understanding of the connections between continents, between black and white, between men and women, between the free and the enslaved. It is a story brought to life with riveting and unparalleled immediacy, a story of fundamental importance to the making of our world.
This book discusses the role historical events played in determining the pattern of growth of Indian manufacturing. Two important historical events significantly influenced the course of Indian manufacturing from the 15th century AD. The first was the arrival of European merchants via sea route pioneered by Vasco-da-Gamma in 1498 and the other was the dawn of the Mughal Empire in 1526. The book explores how these two events provided the appropriate stimulus for the emergence of traditional flexible manufacturing in India and how they played a vital role in the pattern of growth of the Indian manufacturing: The Mughal Empire created an integrated economy of continental size whereas European trading companies expanded the commercial connectivity of the Indian economy and South East Asia. It further investigates how the circumstances created by the colonial administration, factor endowment and market conditions created the complex forms of manufacturing enterprises that India inherited at the time of independence. It is a valuable resource for students of history, economic history, business history and the history of technology.
The author, M K K Nayar's impressionable childhood, schooling and university years began in early 1920s - the most turbulent period of India's independence struggle. Aftergraduating in 1940 and spending two years in Travancore Civil Service, M K K Nayar joined the Ordnance Department of British India in Hyderabad. During this phase of his career, he risked his life more than once to bring nefarious going-ons in the princely state of Hyderabad to the attention of national leaders like Sardar Vallabhai Patel and defuse conspiracies that were jeopardizing India's national interests. In 1948, M K K Nayar joinedthe IAS and was involved prominently in India's national development - notably in building the Bhilai Steel Plant and fertilizer plants that also seeded several other industries in the Cochin Industrial Belt, and by propagating modern agriculture throughout South India. His friendship and intimacy with national leaders like Pandit Jawaharlal Nehru, illustrious civil servants like V P Menon, industrialists like J R D Tata and innumerable opinion-leaders all over India gave him a ringside view of and insider information on some the most important and interesting episodes of Indian history until mid 1970s. !Destiny took him to Kerala in 1959 to head India's pioneer fertilizer company, The Fertilisers And Chemicals Travancore Ltd (FACT) which he developed into a multifaceted organization that grew over twenty-fold during the decade of his tenure in it. This period that ended in 1971 also found him raising Kathakali, one of the most stylized forms of mime dance-drama from a destitute existence on the fringes of Kerala's social milieu to the forefront of international recognition. Success in everything he did even outside of his vocation, from resolving political imbroglios to promoting art and literature, took him to the forefront of life in Kerala and the national capital. Jealousies it aroused resulted in court cases being instituted against him on frivolous charges and they took 12 years for him to be fully exonerated. In that time, India lost the services of one of its ablest go-getters during what should have been his peak years. !Between June 1986 until his premature passing away in September 1987, he penned a series of articles about his life nd times. It was serialized under the title of Aarodum Paribhavamillathe, Oru Kalaghattathinte Katha in the popular Malayalam weekly, Kala Kaumudi. It was later published as a book which became a big hit with Malayali readers and is printed and published even now. !M K K Nayar emphasizes that this was not an autobiography but an attempt to share without bitterness or ill-will some of his experiences and the joy, pain and terrible sadness they brought him. The renowned historian, author and academician, M G S Narayan says that M K K Nayar's 'memoirs did not get the due recognition it deserved"e; and acknowledges it as a "e;historical chronicle of pre and post independent India"e;. !The book has been translated into English by Gopakumar M Nair, who was an executive of FACT during a part of M K K Nayar's tenure there. Though Gopakumar is a popular amateur writer from his college days in IIT Madras, this translation named The Story of an Era, Told Without Ill-will is his first book.
In the American deep south in 1957, the Redbirds battle the Bayou Braves for the championship. Ronnie LeBlanc, the Redbirds’ pitcher, believes that winning the regional title is his ticket out of a dead-end job at the local sugar mill. When the Redbirds suffer a series of losses, the team’s coach quits, and the sole person willing to take the job is a former Negro League pitcher—the only African-American in a still-segregated game. Ronnie begins to suspect external forces are the cause of his team’s unlucky streak. As he digs for answers, he stumbles upon a secret: Bo Brasseux, the town’s bigoted banker, is scheming to kill the Redbirds’ new coach, throw the championship game, and ruin Ronnie’s family financially. A scout for the Chicago Cubs could be the answer, but will being tapped by the Cubs be enough to thwart Brasseux’s despicable plans against the coach and Ronnie’s family? Based on a true story, “Stealing First” is only one tale in this collection that offers glimpses of small-town politics, snake-handlers, nosey house-hunters, and the making of a murderer. Each story looks at our prejudices and conceits, our loves in all their variations, and the worst and best of us.
The barracks book is the history of cane barracks between Mossman and Ingham, narrated by the colourful characters who were the essence and energy of barrack culture and folklore. Cane barracks remain the most characteristic and enduring example of Tropical North Queensland architecture. Hundreds of these original structures have been lost to cyclone, flood, fire and time; others miraculously have endured, a handful from the 1890s, to bring an historic insight and hand era nostalgia to this fast moving modern NQ tourist oriented 21st century.
