"This volume is a selection of the papers presented during the international conference Patagonia: Myths and Realities organised through the Centre of Latin American Cultural Studies at the University of Manchester and held in September 2005 at the Manchester Museum"--Introd.

"In my opinion this project of publications devoted to folk literature of South America is of paramount importance. South American mythology belongs to the spiritual inheritance of mankind on par with the great masterpieces of Greek and Roman antiquity and of the Near and Far East. At the present time this material is scattered in numerous publications most of which are not easy to locate. It would do a great service to scholars all over the world and to the general public to have them collected in a series of volumes."--Claude Levi-Strauss "It is time we had a set of volumes containing good source material for those who wish to study South American indigenous narratives; I am also quite certain that many nonspecialists would be interested in original documents of this kind."--Gerardo Reichel-Dolmatoff

Reciprocity, Wonder, Consequence : Object Lessons in the Land of Fire -- Of Blindness, Blood, and Second Sight : Transpersonal Journeys from Brazil to Ethiopia -- Creole Authenticity and Cultural Performance : Ethnographic Personhood in the Twentieth Century -- Performing Diaspora : The Science of Speaking for Haiti -- Conclusion : "I Danced, I Don't Know How" : Media, Race, and the Posthuman

A narration of dramas played out from 1578 to 2000 in Tierra del Fuego by the native Yamana, Darwin, explorers, sealers, whalers and missionaries.

"Set on the edges of time, this intriguing odyssey, part biography, part memoir and part historical detective story, has a magical extra dimension. Tracking Thomas, an elusive young man of the past, the author follows him out of the British Library to the China Seas and remote islands of Polynesia, to Indias plantation lands in the days of the British Raj, and through the deserts of Arabia. Finding she is often in her own footsteps too, can she span what seems an unbridgeable gap between the known and the unknown and solve a mystery? A unique and enthralling love story."--Publisher's website

The 15th anniversary edition of a brilliant, action-packed and gripping novel of Charles Darwin's voyage on the Beagle - longlisted for the Man Booker Prize. New introduction from Daisy Goodwin. 'A master storyteller' Sunday Times In 1831 Charles Darwin set off in HMS Beagle under the command of Captain Robert Fitzroy on a voyage that would change the world. This is the story of a deep friendship between two men, and the twin obsessions that tear them apart, leading one to triumph, and the other to disaster. 'An outstandingly good first novel. A page-turning action-adventure combined with subtle intellectual arguments. The meticulous research enriches this fascinating tale' Sunday Telegraph

Concise Encyclopedia of Languages of the World is an authoritative single-volume reference resource comprehensively describing the major languages and language families of the world. It will provide full descriptions of the phonology, semantics, morphology, and syntax of the world's major languages, giving insights into their structure, history and development, sounds, meaning, structure, and language family, thereby both highlighting their diversity for comparative study, and contextualizing them according to their genetic relationships and regional distribution.Based on the highly acclaimed and award-winning Encyclopedia of Language and Linguistics, this volume will provide an edited collection of almost 400 articles throughout which a representative subset of the world's major languages are unfolded and explained in up-to-date terminology and authoritative interpretation, by the leading scholars in linguistics. In highlighting the diversity of the world's languages — from the thriving to the endangered and extinct — this work will be the first point of call to any language expert interested in this huge area. No other single volume will match the extent of language coverage or the authority of the contributors of Concise Encyclopedia of Languages of the World. - Extraordinary breadth of coverage: a comprehensive selection of just under 400 articles covering the world's major languages, language families, and classification structures, issues and dispute - Peerless quality: based on 20 years of academic development on two editions of the leading reference resource in linguistics, Encyclopedia of Language and Linguistics - Unique authorship: 350 of the world's leading experts brought together for one purpose - Exceptional editorial selection, review and validation process: Keith Brown and Sarah Ogilvie act as first-tier guarantors for article quality and coverage - Compact and affordable: one-volume format makes this suitable for personal study at any institution interested in areal, descriptive, or comparative language study - and at a fraction of the cost of the full encyclopedia

This volume explores cultural, social and economic connections between the Americas and the South Pacific. It reaches beyond Sino-American collaborations to focus on rather neglected, and sometimes invisible, Southern linkages, asking how these connections originated and have developed over time, which local responses they have generated, and what impact these processes have in the region in terms of representational forms and strategies, new cultural practices, and empowerment of individuals in (post)colonial contexts. The volume also compares and contrasts intriguing parallels of politics and identity formation. By extending the focus beyond East Asia to the Southern Pacific region, including Island connections with the Americas, the volume provides a more comprehensive understanding of recent dynamics and shifting relations across the Pacific. By approaching the Transpacific Americas as an assemblage or relational space, which is created and becomes meaningful through multiple localities and their translocal connections, the book complicates the Euro-American distinction between "centre" and "rim". While the collection offers a distinctive geographical focus, it simultaneously emphasizes the translocal qualities of specific locations through their entanglements in transpacific assemblages within and across cultural, social and economic spheres. Furthermore, without neglecting the inextricable, historical dimension of anthropological perspectives, the focus is on the diverse and unexpected contemporary forms of cultural, social and economic encounters and engagements, and on (re)emerging Indigenous networks. Primarily based on empirical research, the volume explores face-to-face encounters, relations "from below," and transcultural interactions and relationships in, as well as ideas and conceptualizations of, cultural spaces across localities that have long been perceived as separate, but are indeed closely interconnected.