Springer An Archaeology of Social Space: Analyzing Coffee Plantations in Jamaica’s Blue Mountains (Contributions To Global Historical Archaeology)

This unique volume examines the cognitive and material records of the spatial design and use - including maps, architectural drawings, landscapes, and historical treatises - of three coffee plantations in the Yallahs drainage of eastern Jamaica. Monographs concentrating on the historical archaeology of the Caribbean are rare, and this is the first to have space as its general area of study and coffee plantations as its specific focus. The volume is also significant in its cogent linkage of theory and data, and its treatment of social cognitive and material spaces as manifestations of a single set of phenomena. Review `Valuable...This theoretically sophisticated work belongs in serious anthropology, geography, plantation, and Caribbean studies collections. Upper-division undergraduates and above.' Choice (November 1998) `This volume, a reworking of Delle's doctoral dissertation, is published in the Contribution to Global Archaeology Series. In Chapter 1, Delle lays out a Marxist approach. Following James Deetz, he defines historical archaeology as the archaeology of capitalism, of the study of European colonialism. Delle reviews previous spatial analyses of colonialism, including contributions to community studies and garden, landscape, and plantation archaeology. He places his work within the latter category: a study of the negotiation of landscapes and spaces on Jamaican coffee plantations from 1790, when coffee was first produced in the Blue Mountains, until 1865, by which time coffee production in this region had ceased. Not coincidentally, during this period the British slave trade was banned and slavery abolished. ' Journal of Anthropological Research `Overall, Delle's work is a well-written and interestingly conceived study in an area and industry that has received little attention. The book is beautifully illustrated with photographs, line drawings, historical lithographs, and historic maps. ' Historical Archaeology, 34:2