Michael Connors
Auteur van Caribbean Elegance
Over de Auteur
Michael Connors is Managing Director of BZW Asset Management
Werken van Michael Connors
French Colonial West Indian Armoires 1 exemplaar
Gerelateerde werken
Good Neighbor Sam [1964 film] — Actor — 3 exemplaren
Tagged
Algemene kennis
- Geboortedatum
- 1947
- Geslacht
- male
- Nationaliteit
- USA
- Geboorteplaats
- New York, New York, USA
- Woonplaatsen
- Memphis, Tennessee, USA
- Beroepen
- antiques dealer
Leden
Besprekingen
French island elegance door Michael W. Connors
Full of lush photography of houses amid wonderful tropical gardens. I do like old architecture but there isn't that much variation in the Caribbean, and what there is doesn't reach the grandeur of Europe, so it really didn't do anything much for me. It would make a nice gift but had nothing new to add to the books of Caribbean architecture and furniture.
Pretty much an ok book if you are interested in lush pictures of oldish houses with plenty of antiques in them. I prefer Suzanne Slesin's Caribbean Style which despite being a bit out-dated now, at least has contemporary houses of the-way-we-live-now.
In a way this is a political book, but that wouldn't be apparent to anyone who didn't know the Caribbean very well.
All the pictures are of old Great Houses and villas constructed either at the time of or later in the same style as the Plantation era, the time of slavery. The furniture mostly dates from that time too, or again was meant to reflect the grandeur, wealth and comfort of that age. For some.
Not all the British islands have these houses, and it is notable that the more Great Houses an island has, the more likely it is to be poor. After the ending of slavery, many slave masters stayed on and ran their plantation with hired labour, still maintaining the power structure and the economic disparity between Black and White. Eventually sugar became uneconomic and the economies diversified, but those resident Whites and a rising class of their light-skinned mixed race children maintained their hold as owners of enterprises and in many of these islands still do.
There are other islands that on the ending of slavery let it be known that the (majority of) Whites were not welcome and they left, their Great Houses burned or fallen into disrepair if there were no mixed race progeny to take them over. Other islands suffered terrible cholera epidemics and as there was no longer profit from sugar and the outgoings to maintain a business were higher than any potential income now that labour had to be hired, the Whites left and were not replaced.
These islands had to start from scratch, the Blacks went in for agriculture, charcoal, animals, ship-building, many things, and built their carpenter houses, but from the start they were all on one level: ex-slaves and they had to be self-reliant, there were no masters to employ and pay them. This structure of equality only began to break down about 20 years ago with the coming of wealth and hasn't completely gone as yet.
So this book of pictures of glorious houses and furniture of times past is also a record of surviving privilege among those who were never entitled to it in the first place.… (meer)
All the pictures are of old Great Houses and villas constructed either at the time of or later in the same style as the Plantation era, the time of slavery. The furniture mostly dates from that time too, or again was meant to reflect the grandeur, wealth and comfort of that age. For some.
Not all the British islands have these houses, and it is notable that the more Great Houses an island has, the more likely it is to be poor. After the ending of slavery, many slave masters stayed on and ran their plantation with hired labour, still maintaining the power structure and the economic disparity between Black and White. Eventually sugar became uneconomic and the economies diversified, but those resident Whites and a rising class of their light-skinned mixed race children maintained their hold as owners of enterprises and in many of these islands still do.
There are other islands that on the ending of slavery let it be known that the (majority of) Whites were not welcome and they left, their Great Houses burned or fallen into disrepair if there were no mixed race progeny to take them over. Other islands suffered terrible cholera epidemics and as there was no longer profit from sugar and the outgoings to maintain a business were higher than any potential income now that labour had to be hired, the Whites left and were not replaced.
These islands had to start from scratch, the Blacks went in for agriculture, charcoal, animals, ship-building, many things, and built their carpenter houses, but from the start they were all on one level: ex-slaves and they had to be self-reliant, there were no masters to employ and pay them. This structure of equality only began to break down about 20 years ago with the coming of wealth and hasn't completely gone as yet.
So this book of pictures of glorious houses and furniture of times past is also a record of surviving privilege among those who were never entitled to it in the first place.… (meer)
Misschien vindt je deze ook leuk
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Statistieken
- Werken
- 15
- Ook door
- 1
- Leden
- 182
- Populariteit
- #118,785
- Waardering
- 3.2
- Besprekingen
- 3
- ISBNs
- 17