Space in the tropics : from convicts to rockets in French Guiana / Peter Redfield.

Format:

Book

Author/Creator:

Redfield, Peter, 1965-

Language:

English

Subjects (All):

Human geography--French Guiana--History.

Human geography.

Penal colonies--French Guiana--Devil's Island.

Penal colonies.

Human ecology.

Economic development--Environmental aspects.

Economic development.

Centre spatial guyanais.

Physical Description:

1 online resource (368 p.)

Edition:

1st ed.

Place of Publication:

Berkeley : University of California Press, c2000.

Language Note:

English

Summary:

Rockets roar into space--bearing roughly half the world's commercial satellites--from the same South American coastal rainforest where convicts once did time on infamous Devil's Island. What makes Space in the Tropics enthralling is anthropologist Peter Redfield's ability to draw from these two disparate European projects in French Guiana a gleaming web of ideas about the intersections of nature and culture.

Contents:

Preliminaries; Contents; Illustrations; Acknowledgments; Preface; 1. Robinson Crusoe, Anthropology, and the Horizon of Technology; 2. History on the Wild Coast; 3. Botany Bay to Devil's Island; 4. The Natural Prison; 5. A Gate to the Heavens; 6. The Margin of the Future; 7. Tropics of Nature; 8. The Nature of Work; 9. The Imperfect Equator; Notes; Bibliography; Credits; Index

Notes:

Description based upon print version of record.

Description based on print version record.

Includes bibliographical references (p. 299-329) and index.

ISBN:

0-520-92342-1

1-59734-908-9

OCLC:

475929831