An instructive and enlightening book.
A son of one of the founders of the Rastafarian movement tells the inside story of the utopian village his father founded and the colonial forces that ultimately destroyed it.
Born and raised at Pinnacle, Howell had the unique opportunity to witness the events surrounding this first-ever Rasta community’s rise and fall. Working alongside his father’s biographer, Lee, the author offers insights into Leonard Howell (1898-1981), the man who founded the commune, and the troubled history of Pinnacle itself. Toward the end of World War I, Leonard left Jamaica to fight for England. Then he split time between Panama and New York City, where he met Black intellectuals like Marcus Garvey, who inspired him to create a pro-African belief system that extended divinity to Ethiopian emperor Haile Selassie. Upon returning to Jamaica in the 1930s, Leonard earned a reputation among members of the Jamaican establishment as a radical who “advised poor people to start working together to build their own society.” Preaching “peace and love,” Leonard, who was at different times jailed and thrown into a psychiatric hospital for his beliefs, founded Pinnacle as a refuge for those who followed his beliefs. Built on the grounds of an old colonial estate, Pinnacle was a place where “everybody lived comfortably.” Fruit and fish were plentiful, and drumming and singing were a part of everyday life. However, peace was elusive. Fearing Leonard’s growing influence on the poor and dispossessed, procolonial Jamaican government forces did everything in their power—from invalidating his purchase of Pinnacle lands to subjecting him and Pinnacle to periodic police harassment—to lay waste to a thriving Rasta community. Illustrated throughout with black-and-white photographs, this loving tribute will appeal to historians of Jamaica and the Caribbean, as well as anyone with an interest in the origins of Rastafarian culture.
An instructive and enlightening book.Pub Date: Aug. 6, 2024
ISBN: 9781636141725
Page Count: 200
Publisher: Akashic
Review Posted Online: April 30, 2024
Kirkus Reviews Issue: June 1, 2024
Worthwhile reference stuffed with facts and illustrations.
A compendium of charts, time lines, lists and illustrations to accompany study of the Bible.
This visually appealing resource provides a wide array of illustrative and textually concise references, beginning with three sets of charts covering the Bible as a whole, the Old Testament and the New Testament. These charts cover such topics as biblical weights and measures, feasts and holidays and the 12 disciples. Most of the charts use a variety of illustrative techniques to convey lessons and provide visual interest. A worthwhile example is “How We Got the Bible,” which provides a time line of translation history, comparisons of canons among faiths and portraits of important figures in biblical translation, such as Jerome and John Wycliffe. The book then presents a section of maps, followed by diagrams to conceptualize such structures as Noah’s Ark and Solomon’s Temple. Finally, a section on Christianity, cults and other religions describes key aspects of history and doctrine for certain Christian sects and other faith traditions. Overall, the authors take a traditionalist, conservative approach. For instance, they list Moses as the author of the Pentateuch (the first five books of the Hebrew Bible) without making mention of claims to the contrary. When comparing various Christian sects and world religions, the emphasis is on doctrine and orthodox theology. Some chapters, however, may not completely align with the needs of Catholic and Orthodox churches. But the authors’ leanings are muted enough and do not detract from the work’s usefulness. As a resource, it’s well organized, inviting and visually stimulating. Even the most seasoned reader will learn something while browsing.
Worthwhile reference stuffed with facts and illustrations.Pub Date: Sept. 1, 2005
ISBN: 978-1-5963-6022-8
Page Count: -
Publisher: N/A
Review Posted Online: May 23, 2010
Review Program: Kirkus Indie
This a book of earlier, philosophical essays concerned with the essential "absurdity" of life and the concept that- to overcome the strong tendency to suicide in every thoughtful man-one must accept life on its own terms with its values of revolt, liberty and passion. A dreary thesis- derived from and distorting the beliefs of the founders of existentialism, Jaspers, Heldegger and Kierkegaard, etc., the point of view seems peculiarly outmoded. It is based on the experience of war and the resistance, liberally laced with Andre Gide's excessive intellectualism. The younger existentialists such as Sartre and Camus, with their gift for the terse novel or intense drama, seem to have omitted from their philosophy all the deep religiosity which permeates the work of the great existentialist thinkers. This contributes to a basic lack of vitality in themselves, in these essays, and ten years after the war Camus seems unaware that the life force has healed old wounds... Largely for avant garde aesthetes and his special coterie.
Pub Date: Sept. 26, 1955
ISBN: 0679733736
Page Count: 228
Publisher: Knopf
Review Posted Online: Sept. 19, 2011
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Sept. 1, 1955
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