This is the story about a guy in his twenties who was looking to break out of the repetitive routine, and acted upon this by moving to Europe and sought out irresponsible pleasures. It was inspired by his own personal experiences while traveling recklessly with all sorts of characters. He eventually travels to Central and South America, where he became immersed in these cultures while learning the languages, and making long lasting bonds with the local people. Finally he returns to the USA, but not without the allure he acquired while on his never ending adventure, and the knowledge that he had become a man of the world who had lived his dream. This is the fascinating story about everything that happened in between on the journey.
Images of Jamaica and the Bahamas as tropical paradises full of palm trees, white sandy beaches, and inviting warm water seem timeless. Surprisingly, the origins of those images can be traced back to the roots of the islands’ tourism industry in the 1880s. As Krista A. Thompson explains, in the late nineteenth century, tourism promoters, backed by British colonial administrators, began to market Jamaica and the Bahamas as picturesque “tropical” paradises. They hired photographers and artists to create carefully crafted representations, which then circulated internationally via postcards and illustrated guides and lectures. Illustrated with more than one hundred images, including many in color, An Eye for the Tropics is a nuanced evaluation of the aesthetics of the “tropicalizing images” and their effects on Jamaica and the Bahamas. Thompson describes how representations created to project an image to the outside world altered everyday life on the islands. Hoteliers imported tropical plants to make the islands look more like the images. Many prominent tourist-oriented spaces, including hotels and famous beaches, became off-limits to the islands’ black populations, who were encouraged to act like the disciplined, loyal colonial subjects depicted in the pictures. Analyzing the work of specific photographers and artists who created tropical representations of Jamaica and the Bahamas between the 1880s and the 1930s, Thompson shows how their images differ from the English picturesque landscape tradition. Turning to the present, she examines how tropicalizing images are deconstructed in works by contemporary artists—including Christopher Cozier, David Bailey, and Irénée Shaw—at the same time that they remain a staple of postcolonial governments’ vigorous efforts to attract tourists.
Snow in the Tropics by Thomas Taro Lennerfors and Peter Birch offers the first comprehensive history of the independent reefer operators. These shipping companies, such as Lauritzen, Salén, Seatrade, Star Reefers, and NYK Reefer, developed the dedicated transport of refrigerated products like meat, fish, and fruit by ship, from the early 20th century to the present. Snow in the Tropics describes how the history of the reefer operators has been formed in relation to shippers, such as Dole and Chiquita, in a constant struggle with the liner companies, such as Maersk, and in relation to global economic and political trends. It also covers how the industry is discursively constructed and the psychological drivers of the business decisions in it.
Beautifully illustrated throughout with color plates, photographs, and drawings, this volume is a comprehensive introduction to the natural history of the tropics worldwide. 59 color photos. 21 maps.
Seventeen marvelous essays introducing the habitats, ecology, plants, and animals of the Central and South American rainforest. A lively, lucid portrait of the tropics as seen by two uncommonly observant and thoughtful field biologists. Its seventeen marvelous essays introduce the habitats, ecology, plants, and animals of the Central and South American rainforest. Includes a lengthy appendix of practical advice for the tropical traveler.
The average kilometer of tropical rainforest is teeming with life; it contains thousands of species of plants and animals. As The Ornaments of Life reveals, many of the most colorful and eye-catching rainforest inhabitants—toucans, monkeys, leaf-nosed bats, and hummingbirds to name a few—are an important component of the infrastructure that supports life in the forest. These fruit-and-nectar eating birds and mammals pollinate the flowers and disperse the seeds of hundreds of tropical plants, and unlike temperate communities, much of this greenery relies exclusively on animals for reproduction. Synthesizing recent research by ecologists and evolutionary biologists, Theodore H. Fleming and W. John Kress demonstrate the tremendous functional and evolutionary importance of these tropical pollinators and frugivores. They shed light on how these mutually symbiotic relationships evolved and lay out the current conservation status of these essential species. In order to illustrate the striking beauty of these “ornaments” of the rainforest, the authors have included a series of breathtaking color plates and full-color graphs and diagrams.
This title compares the current space programme in French Guiana to the earlier penal colony of Devil's Island, highlighting cultural realignments in nature behind the evolution of global technology in a tropical rainforest.
