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Jamaica is one of a chain of islands -- the West Indian archipelago -- which encircles the Caribbean Sea. Its earliest indigenous people, the Tainos, succumbed to the arrival of western Europeans, inaugurated by the encounter with Columbus in 1494. Spanish rule gave way in 1655 to some 300 years of English colonial rule involving nearly two centuries of plantation slavery. The country finally gained independence in 1962. Jamaica has made some notable contributions in the international arena. Perhaps best known are its contributions in the world of sport, popular music (reggae) and in its development of distinctive forms of dance-theatre and folk music. This wide-ranging volume is a fully revised and updated edition of the work which was first published in 1984.
The Revolution of 1989 dramatically brought Romania to international prominence as an absorbed world watched the bloody aftermath of the overthrow of Nicolae Ceausescu live in television. These pictures of violence were soon joined by others, including those depicting the plight of children placed in state care, which brutally revealed the extent of the country's suffering under Communism.
The Internet editor for the Netherlands Programme Service has compiled annotated entries on primarily English-language works dealing with Amsterdam's history, geography, economy, politics, demographics, and sociocultural aspects of daily living (e.g., customs, education, literature, the media, religion--including Jewish life, and sports). Includes a map of this "cosmopolitan village" and useful addresses. Indexed by author, title, and subject. Annotation copyrighted by Book News, Inc., Portland, OR
The Grand Duchy of Luxembourg, the smallest member of the European Union, is a sovereign state tucked away between Belgium, France and Germany. Formerly a formidable fortress it has over the centuries been successively assailed and occupied by Burgundian, Spanish, French, Austrian and Prussian troops. Luxembourg has become one of the thriving financial and telecommunications centres of Western Europe, thanks both to its geographical position and its highly qualified, multilingual work-force.
Annotation. A former US foreign service officer with a background in information studies, Langstaff selects and annotates studies of the Central American country in English, and in Spanish for topics that are not fully treated in English-language publications. She here updates the 1980 edition with publications up to 1998. The entries are presented in topical sections, among them tourism and travel guides, languages, agriculture, and professional periodicals. Only two of the five works cited in the transport section are specifically about the Panama Canal, but the canal figures into most aspects of the country's life. Annotation copyrighted by Book News, Inc., Portland, OR.
Namibia is one of the largest African countries, bigger than France or Texas. It became a German protectorate in 1884, but from 1919 onwards was administered by South Africa. The first democratically elected government took office in 1989, leading a free Namibia into the 1990s. This volume is a fully revised and updated edition of the original volume which was published in 1984.
Lisbon's relative proximity to Africa led to a prolonged period of Moorish occupation until 1147. The city enjoyed untold wealth during the fifteenth and sixteenth centuries but was devastated by the earthquake in 1755. Portugal's accession to the European Community and Lisbon's subsequent choice both as the European City of Culture (1994) and as the site for the international Expo '98 have brought the city into the European mainstream.
At the beginning of the century Kenya was regarded as little more than a corridor to Uganda: since that time, however, it has made a spectacular success of its social and economic development. Indeed, since gaining its independence in 1963, this ethnically divided nation has remained an 'island' of relative political stability amidst its East African neighbours. This fully-revised volume contains substantial literature on the indigenous population, as well as material about the residents and citizens of European and Asian origins.