In nineteenth century African and Asian colonies, a stratum of indigenous economic and social status groups mediated between the alien rulers and the bulk of the population. Ceylon was no exception where by maintaining their power and prestige in part through their association with the rulers, a small group of men became what Patrick Peebles describes as 'eager collaborators'. It was for he purpose of staffing the colonial bureaucracy that they were recruited in the nineteenth century by the British as chief headman or mudaliyars. Patrick Peebles research into the history of the Sinhalese mudaliyars of the western Province of the Crown colony of Ceylon is an attempt to understand how such families adapted to the changing conditions of colonial rule from the British conquest of the island in 1890. This book is the first sustained attempt to analyze indirect rules and the role of indigenous groups in mediating between the colonisers and the people. I strongly recommend it to anybody interested in this topic or more generally in society in colonial Sri Lanka.

Beryl. T. Mitchell is the daughter of a third generation tea planter - her great grand father, Robert Boyd Tytler having come from Aberdeen, Scotland to Ceylon as a young lad, in 1837. He arrived after two years training in agriculture in the West Indies in coffee and sugar. The book narrates the early days of coffee and tea planting, and is particularly good for the family lines of genealogy for the author's paternal and maternal surnames of Tytler and Tribe. The story also tells how a tea planters' life was lived on the beautifully cultivated mountains of Ceylon in the '50s and 60's and how many of the planters left when Politics changed the face of Ceylon.Background research on the history and varied peoples living on this beautiful tropical island make very interesting reading. The author's family left for Sydney, Australia in 1968, and the story tells how they settled in their new homeland. The book includes 14 pages of photographs of four generations from the author's family album and three tables of family trees as an appendix. The author is currently researching more on her Tytler and Tribe, Boyd, and Gibbon genealogies.

First off, let it be known that this is not a book you'll want to read unless, a) you are a huge fan of Arthur C. Clarke, or b) you are interested in such subjects as underwaters archaeology, shipwrecks, sunken treasure, etc. This book chronicles an expedition to the Great Basses Reef off the coast of Sri Lanka (then Ceylon) in the early 1960's, of which Arthur C. Clarke was a member. As it turns out, they came upon a sunken treasure ship, and recovered it. It was the first one ever found in the Indian Ocean, and, indeed, one of the few period in the last century. Clarke's writing, as always, is entertaining and witty, and keeps you reading, as the story is actually quite exciting (and has the added novelty of being true.) However, it does get quite dry and bland at times, as when Clarke devotes entire pages to legal esoteria and extracts from other people's writings and speeches. Obviously, it is not one of his major books, but neither is it meant to be. As a documentary, it is quite great. It reveals a major side of Clarke that many people are probably not even aware of. It also has many autobiographical ancedotes that fans will enjoy (it talks of when Clarke first felt the symptoms of his polio, for instance.) Also, there are over 100 great photographs in this book, including 16 pages of color ones. In the end, you will read this book if you are an Arthur C. Clarke fan, or if you are inherently interested in its subject matter. Otherwise, pick up Childhood's End.

I picked this book up for lack of something else to read, four days later, I smiled as I read the last sentence. I struggled in the beginning to get into the story, it was monotonous and seemed to be the fictitious equivalent of a history book, but I continued...for as I said, I had nothing better to read. Though the writing style may seem dull, and in the beginning casts that shadow over the story itself... Elizabeth, her family and friends, become real. Not only do you experience the lives they live, but you also receive an amazingly clear picture of what our world was! Perhaps, I have left this review incomplete...in fact, I am sure I have. There are many more things I could say...about Elizabeth's soul-searching, about Jennifer's indecision, which walks hand in hand with ambition, to Charles's hidden self. However, instead, I will tell you that this book touched me, opened my eyes to many new ideas and truths and sparked an interest in the world around me.

An interesting read, but not for the casual reader. This text is a pretty advanced look at the religious beliefs and practices held in a number of Eastern countries. The writer becomes fascinated with the practice of matted hair exhibited in a number of female priestesses. He likens this matting to Medusa's hair and begins to wonder at some of the Freudian psychosexual rationalizations that could be put into play to explain the phenomena. Obeyesekere explores his theory through a number of case studies and eventually comes to what will undoubtedly be a very startling conclusion for the Western eye. I believe this book would be best suited for small discussion due to it's advanced academic nature.

What is most rewarding with this book, is the cultural/cognitive analysis done by the author. Obeyesekere explains how the women with matted hair (in an Indian province) obtain their particular status in a society brimming with mythological images and tales very much pervading daily life. Very Freudian in his approach when recording the life stories of the women (allowances has to be made for this) and subsequently how these trajectories have formed the women, the author demonstrates how the women are able to explain what has happened to them by sharing the society's knowledge of the religious myths. By drawing on these myths, and their images, the women can manipulate and approriate these images when accounting for how they got their matted hair, and consequently the sacred character of their being. So long as their account is identifiable and compatible with commonly held knowledge of the religious myths and tales, they are plausible and deemed valid by the community. Should a tale prove unidentifiable with the body of myths and characteristica of spirits, one may very well be described as plain ol' crazy. I feel that the fundamental argument of the book is how intimate knowledge of the mythological content of the culture, and the successful manipulation of this, leads to an elevation of social status, whereas in western societies, the long since (by and large) eradication of these beliefs (in lack of a better word) will most certanily lead a person with similar symptoms destined for a diagnosis of mental ilness or -unstability. This is the strongest argument in the book, one that is firmly supported by the analysis, notwithstanding the reservations one might have towards traditional psychoanalisis. It's not a light read, but getting into the cultural analysis might be a sweet reward.

Having read Medusa'a Hair as part of my University coursework, I was very impressed, Most of the books we are asked to read are fairly dull but this book really captivated me. Obeyesekere's personal opinions on the subject of matted hair in Sri Lankan women attending the festival at Kataragama was facinating. He has a great way of putting across his own opinion and whilst he makes a great bridge between Weber's and Freud's philosphical standpoints, he very effectively shows his position acroos to the reader. This may seem like a difficult book to comprehend but once read will be greatly admired

I am married to a Jamaican wife, and read any article or book that mentions the country. I came across this book on the CNN Internet several months ago by looking up Jamaica.

My anticipation of this book far outreached the actual reading. The author spends the majority of his time describing the country he is in at the time, and they all seem the same. In detail he tells of the hotels he stays in, where and what he eats, whom he meets along the way, and something about the countless people he asks directions from even though he has a guide. He tells of how the white foreigners arrived in the country, very little of where they fit into the current society, and nothing in between. I realize that time has eroded any written or oral link between the past and now, but in my opinion, this is what was promised. One can read the same few documents that were reprinted in the book on the Internet and glean as much real information as portrayed in the book.

In all I was disappointed with the book.

This book sounded so fascinating that I made two shopping trips to find it in time for a long transatlantic flight. The premise--forgotten descendants of lost empires still clinging to shreds of their heritage in distant and remote lands--was enough to make any adventurous reader salivate. But the payoff was disappointing. Mr. Orizio's characters are two-dimensional and his style rambling. We learn very little about these real people; not enough to learn to care about them very much. This ought to be riveting stuff, but the literary equivalents of archeological relics glitter only rarely. Despite solid historical information, all of it news to me, I came away feeling I'd been on a tour bus that never stopped long enough to see much.

As a person who loves history and anthropology, the title of this book really got my attention and I eagerly anticipated the arrival of this book. I suppose anyone who wants to know more about the descendants of Europeans living in exotic and remote corners of the world would find this topic very interesting. The author tells of how (and under what circumstances) the ancestors of these peoples got there. He also decribes the lives of the members of these communities. These groups are quickly diminishing in numbers due to emigration, assimilation/intermarriage and inbreeding.

The title "Lost White Tribes" is rather misleading though, as only the Jamaican Germans, the Blanc Matignons and some of the Confederados are actually whites. The Dutch Burghers, the Rehoboth Basters, and many of the Confederados as well as the Haitian Poles are in fact mixed-race peoples (ie. Eurasians and Afro-European). From the author's decription, the Haitian Poles despite proudly claiming to be Polish are mainly of African descent with some white admixture.

Hence, I was quite suprised that notwithstanding the title and the fact that there are so many white groups and sub-groups in the New World, including some who live amongst a non-white majority, the author has chosen to include these communities. There are still French white creole communities in Mauritius and the Carribean islands, Mennonites in Belize as well as various distinct communities made up of descendants of Germans and other continental Europeans in Latin America. When I was in the Philippines, I found out that there were still many wealthy Spanish families descended from 16th century settlers.

I give this book 4 stars because the author wasted too much time describing in detail the place he stayed in, whom he met along the way to asks directions and what he and his companions did (eg. his encounter with a pimp in Sri Lanka, his misadventures with a Protestant minister in Haiti, the two kids he hung out with in Jamaica etc.) He should have used the space in the book to have included more communities.

Perhaps Michael Ondaatje is more of a poet than a novelist, as his eleven books of poetry (compared with four novels) might suggest. Or perhaps I am just not a fan of his narrative style, which involves multiple characters and viewpoints, coupled with frequent and lengthy lapses into the past. All I know is that while listening to the audio version of Anil's Ghost over the past week and a half, I was frequestly lost and contemplated giving up.

The book is set in modern Sri Lanka, a country ripped apart by civil war, in which families endlessly seek word of their missing fathers, sons or brothers who have mysteriously disappeared amidst the chaotic violence. Protagonist Anil Tessera is an anthropologist and a native Sri Lankan, U.S. educated, who returns home as part of a human rights organization trying to identify the remains of victims and chronicle human rights violations.

One body in particular fascinates Anil and her partner Sarath, a skeleton they nickname "Sailor" who was apparently tortured and killed about 4 years ago, and then reburied in an area in which only the government might have had access. Although the government's role in the killings seems obvious to the reader, apparently Anil and Sarath believe that Sailor might provide important proof in the government's participation in the bloodshed. Therefore, the search for Sailor's true identity passes for mystery in this novel, amidst Ondaatje's trademark murky flashbacks, evocative settings and short glimpses of very poetic prose. However this great mystery is not terribly satisfying when ultimately solved, since Ondaatje doesn't bother letting readers know exactly how our protagonists identified Sailor.

There are memorable scenes to be sure, such as flashbacks of Anil's days in the U.S. watching old movies with her friend and trying to rationalize the bulletwounds received by characters in western movies, or present-day scenes of Anil and Sarath bathing in remote Sri Lanka lakes and stumbling across tortured drivers on the roadway. The problem is the scenes don't go anywhere - the author spends so much time drifting back into the pasts of slight characters, the reader (or in my case listener) loses interest and frequently forgets exactly who is being discussed. (ie are we discussing the past of Sarath's brother Gamini, a doctor kidnapped from his family and forced to care for rebels a la Dr. Zhivago, or is this chapter still about Sarath's mentor Palipana - and who cares?).

...

If you loved the novel The English Patient, and didn't mind frequent passages where the author uses the male pronoun and you have no idea to whom he is referring, than this may be the novel for you. To make matters worse here, narrator Alan Cumming used virtually the same voice for every character in the novel, male and female, which often added to my confusion. Maybe the novel works better in a few longer sittings, as opposed to frequent half hour intervals which comprise my commute, but I ultimately found Anil's Ghost an occasionally mesmerizing, but ultimately aimless tale.

This book is Michael Ondaatje's portrayal of passion for his native Sri Lanka. It is a brilliant maze of ethnic war, archaeology, forensic science, Buddhist art and culture, all woven into the story of Anil Tissera. A young forensic pathologist who shares her cultural and filial ties with Sri Lanka but not its' political and social affirmations. Ondaatje cleverly spins the web of a war that devours its people, and drives Anil into a deep dark pit of ethno-political uncertainty.

Anil's only aim is to use her forensic skills to prove a silent killing. While she digs for the truth, she discovers her cultural and nationalistic roots. Sarath Diyasena the archaeologist, seeking the same truth through the eyes of the historical past and his brother Gamini, the doctor, the voice of reality, who dissolves history and science for a more gory blood-stained truth. The thread that links them is the passion for their profession. This driving passion is their survival in an unworkable system.

In his poetic genius, Ondaatje describes modern day Sri Lanka as it is. A must read.

The story of forensic anthropologist Anil Tissera is one that Ondaatje drapes in mystery. As can be expected from any who have read his previous works, the description and flashbacks are both vivid and prolificly written. This novel was more accessable than its famous predecessor, The English Patient: there are fewer secret lives and betrayals, but more importantly, nearly all the characters are on the same linear path.

Anil Tissera (Sri Lankan born) is a woman who has been educated in England and the United States in the field of forensic anthropology. She has become immersed in the application of her schooling to the arena of Civil Rights violations. So when a position is needed in the country of Sri Lanka, she enters a world recovering from and on the brink of insurrection, guerrilla warfare and government sponsored killings. This is where the majority of the novel takes place. The focus of her investigation is on a skeleton nicknamed 'Sailor'. Sailor has been hidden among other more ancient remains in a restricted park area that government officials would have access to. Anil is treading on thin ice once she begins to discover the dark secrets surrounding Sailor. However, some of this compelling story is weighed down by lengthy character exploration and remembrances of the past. Suspicion about Sarath, her gov't appointed partner, and his brother Gamini kept my interest well occupied.

Ondaatje succeeds in keeping even the slowest part of the novel well written (and hence acceptable). His technique is an approach that seems to emphasize giving all of his character's a past complete with secrets, pain and pleasure. This is good in the long run, but at times one wants a return to the main story. Ondaatje's humor is first-rate and most will catch themselves laughing more than once. The atmosphere he creates is very enthralling. Anyone interested in drama, mystery, civil rights or international affairs will enjoy this book, making its base very wide in my opinion. I could not help but compare Anil to Dana Scully from the X-Files, which seemed silly at first glance until I realized (and truly appreciated) that what Ondaatje has written about in Sri Lanka, though fiction, is based on truth. This realization made the novel more frightening much better.

The only readily available, handy sized reference guide to the birds of India, although far from complete. But the book turned out to a great help for my first steps in birdwatching.

This book was very informative. It explained about life in Sri Lanka (a very interesting country). The cultures and politics were explained, too.

Krishna grounds his book in research he did in the summers of 1992 and 1993 in which he interviewed an impressive list of Indian and Sri Lankan actors in, and observers of, the late 1980s Indian intervention in Sri Lanka. He uses this research only as a stepping stone to a wider discussion of the relationship between the third world nation-state and ethnicity, which has wide - and painful - implications for the ongoing conflict in Sri Lanka. He also concludes, as have numerous other observers that

"Buttressing the example of Dravidianism in India through its obverse is the tragedy of Sri Lankan Tamil nationalism. Sri Lankan Tamils could have been folded into the national family with relative ease in the early 1950s. Yet, the majoritarian impulse of Sinhalese nationalism (and the political opportunities emergent in its wake) precluded a compromise. Sri Lanka is proof yet again that majoritarian over centralization produces both irredentist violence and precisely what it fears most - namely, partition or secession. The desire for Eelam emerges as a direct consequence of the very imagination that animates most nationalists in South Asia. In that sense, the question of Eelam is not one confined to Sri Lanka but one faced by all the nation-states in the region." (p242)

Krishna's main policy conclusion is that South Asian nations must be reimagined as pluralist, egalitarian, democratic spaces, not spaces inhabited by one language, ethnic or racial group. Unfortunately, especially for the Sri Lankan situation, he makes absolutely no recommendations about how to get there from here.

The second major problem with the book is the shocking lack of sympathy for the Sri Lankan Tamil cause in the specific, particularly surprising from one with such a thorough understanding of the dynamics of its generation. One reason for this lack of sympathy is Krishna's allegiance to pluralism.

"...in contemporary South Asia, the fiction of homogeneity reigns hegemonic over both managers of the nation-state and the many insurgent movements fighting against them. The various Eelams of South Asia share the mono-logical imagination that forever seeks to align territory with identity in a singular and final fashion. They are essentially partition redux, and for that reason they constitute the farcical sequels to the initial tragedy. Hence, most insurgent movements in the region do not constitute an alternative to the existing spatial imaginaires of the nation, nor are they worthy of support by those committed to a pluralist and democratic ethos." (p242)

I wish he had listed one insurgent movement which does provide an alternative anywhere in the world. Where is this alternative being incubated? I also wish he had given more than vague pledges of allegiance to pluralism and democracy, but concrete examples of how this new world could be created, especially in a situation of pressure from the state. If one does not have territory, how can one experiment in government? If insurgencies are simply reactions to majoritarian impulses, how are they supposed to be more than mirrors of what they oppose? If the state uses any possible class, caste, geographical or religious difference to weaken its opposition how can pluralism develop?

Also surprising is that Krishna, like most observers, interviewed for his research project those who fight the LTTE, rather than those who sympathize with them. Considering the time and place of the interviews, right after Rajiv Gandhi's assassination, the few Indian sympathizers of the LTTE were probably constrained to keep their mouths shut. Not one Sri Lankan LTTE sympathizer that I can identify was interviewed. It is astonishing to me that someone as sensitive as Krishna to the manner in which discourse follows the faultlines of power would have made such a basic mistake in trying to understand the IPKF incident. It does revel, however, to what extent Krishna's focus is India rather than Sri Lanka.

The end result of having such unbalanced interviews is a failure of interpretation of the specifics of the IPKF incident on Krishna's part. Most egregious is his accusation that the LTTE leadership wanted Thileepan to die to de-legitimize the IPKF. Krishna has not gotten a handle on either the popularity of Thileepan's project in Jaffna, the urgency of the grievances Thileepan was highlighting or Thileepan's own agency in his self-sacrifice. He calls the whole thing a 'macabre spectacle,' but forgets to mention that J.N. Dixit, the Indian High Commissioner in Colombo, did not believe Thileepan would actually go through with his own death. He also does not deal with the failure of the Indians to recognize or honor a non-violent, quintessentially Indian, form of protest.

Krishna's interpretation - as it is a common one - has important consequences for future attempts to solve the Sri Lankan war, because even he believes the Tamil leadership will settle for nothing less than separation under any circumstances. This interpretation will lead to less of an emphasis on coming up with acceptable provisions of an accord and more on the need to destroy an uncompromising set of demons.

We must accept that it is very difficult for outsiders to develop a balanced view of the conflict because of a severe lack of credible, accessible sources. Those most intimately involved in the struggle are too busy to write their memoirs or interpretations of events, and security concerns constrain their accessibility. No powerful outside force is available to mentor sympathetic explanations of the Tamil side in the war. The past 5 years have seen a growth in the number of websites and newspapers addressing the issues, but, commonly, these resources seem to primarily communicate with the Tamil community rather than the outside world. (Mind you, communication within the community is exceptional.) At the same time the forces working to stigmatize the Tamil resistance as 'terrorists' have made it unlikely that outsiders - even academics - will go to the effort of reading and absorbing the vast number of words available through the Internet. In any case such information is no substitute for the personal relationships which breed sympathetic understanding.

All these hurdles, however, do not do away with the need to be in a dialogue to the best of our ability with all those players in the outside world who affect events in Sri Lanka to make sure true versions of events and beliefs are heard. One never knows when we'll get lucky