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This digital document is an article from Encyclopedia of African-American Culture and History, 2nd ed., brought to you by Gale®, a part of Cengage Learning, a world leader in e-research and educational publishing for libraries, schools and businesses.The length of the article is 820 words.The article is delivered in HTML format and is available in your Amazon.com Digital Locker immediately after purchase.You can view it with any web browser.The Early Civilizations in the Americas Reference Library provides a comprehensive overview of the history of the regions of the American continents in which two of the world's first civilizations developed: Mesoamerica (the name for the lands in which ancient civilizations arose in Central America and Mexico) and the Andes Mountains region of South America (in present-day Peru and parts of Bolivia, northern Argentina, and Ecuador). In both regions, the history of civilization goes back thousands of years. ... Read more

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In his eulogy of James Baldwin--one of this anthology's previously unpublished works--Baraka writes that Baldwin was "turned all the way up, receiving and broadcasting . . . ." The same can be said of Baraka. For more than 30 years he has been one of our most self-revising, self-assertive writers. Culling representative samples of his oeuvre, this expertly edited volume reflects Baraka's bold ventures and about-faces. The poems of 1964's The Dead Lecturer tick like small explosives. Selections from 1963's Blues People and 1968's Black Music reveal Baraka as a superb, learned critic. With remarkable candor, an excerpt from Baraka's 1984 autobiography scrutinizes his Black Arts period. Notable among the new pieces is "Why's / wise," a long poem that unfolds the story of how African-Americans' appropriation of English led to the rich oral languages of blues and jazz, from which so much of Baraka's own work proceeds. The story of Baraka's metamorphoses is itself part of the story of contemporary literature's development. Anyone seeking to understand either will find this volume indispensable. Harris wrote The Poetry and Poetics of Amiri Baraka.Copyright 1991 Reed Business Information, Inc. ... Read more