Planning the Past - by Anita M Waters (Paperback)

About the Book

Planning the Past studies the way a post-colonial society reconstructs its national history and grapples with its colonial past, specifically in Port Royal, a Jamaican village with a dramatic history of pirates, naval admirals, and earthquakes. The plans for Port Royal's herit...

Book Synopsis

Planning the Past studies the way a post-colonial society reconstructs its national history and grapples with its colonial past, specifically in Port Royal, a Jamaican village with a dramatic history of pirates, naval admirals, and earthquakes. The plans for Port Royal's heritage tourism development represent a chronological record of historical revisionism, and the fact that none of the plans has been realized reflects post-colonial social processes and national ambivalence about piratical and naval history.

Review Quotes

The research, insights, and cultural hermeneutic of Professor Waters' work are stimulating, academically engaging, and culturally restorative in vision and the justification thereof. Whereas past administrations have mapped the contours of the ruins and thereby have given up on Port Royal as a 'royal eye-sore', Professor Waters has rediscovered and reaffirmed the historic-cultural gems of the community-a people and place where the ascription of Royal is more than an honorific nomenclature, but a Port of entry into a promising vision of dignity, prosperity, and hospitality.

This is an interesting and thought-provoking study...

Waters' Planning the Past represents an important case study of the contested and changing representations of history and heritagem, one that sheds light on Jamaica's relationship with its colonial past and the region's continuing struggle with historicity and authenticity.

About the Author

Anita M. Waters is associate professor of sociology and anthropology at Denison University.