Afro-Creole

Richard D. E. Burton is Professor of French and Francophone Studies in the School of African and Asian Studies at the University of Sussex. He is the author of Blood in the City: Violence and Revelation in Paris, 1789-1945 (a Times Literary Supplement Book of the Year, 2002), also from Cornell, and of two books on Baudelaire.

This is a stimulating, wide-ranging and theoretically well-informed anthropological and historical exploration of Afro-Caribbean popular culture.(British Bulletim of Publications) A bold and cogent study.- Sada Niang, University of Victoria (African Studies Review) A fine and comprehensive history.... It is perhaps the most useful survey yet on the formation of distinctively Afro-Creole forms of public expression in the Anglophonic West Indies.(New West Indian Guide) Afro-Creole admirably captures the essence of what it means to be Caribbean. By daring to 'run against orthodox thinking' on the matter of the culture of resistance, the author has provided a provocative and thoroughly enjoyable reexamination of the entire question of African survival in the Caribbean. He will not end debate on the matter, but he has certainly greatly enriched it.- Keith Q. Warner (Research in African Literatures) Burton's work is perhaps the best researched, most thoughtful, intellectually provocative study of the complex relationship between history, religion, poetics, culture, and social change especially, but not exclusively, in the English-speaking Caribbean. It is powerfully written, humorous, and meticulously examines the psychology and paradoxically religious anthropology of Jamaican and Trinidadian politics.... The essence of the argument is that popular protests, regardless of the practical forms like cricket, dance, or carnival in Trinidad and revivalist religions like Myal and Rastafari in Jamaica, simultaneously challenge and reinforce the status quo and are accepted substitutes for overt power confrontations.... Burton's conclusion suggests that the order and conservatism of most Caribbean societies may be explained by the important role of cultural activities as a historical medium for diffusing and controlling the masses.(Choice)