<P>"The chapters in these volumes excel in describing the diverse cultural responses of black populations to unique local and national contexts.... Whitten and Torres have produced a valuable collection destined to become a standard reference work on black cultures in Latin America and the Caribbean." —American Anthropologist</P><P>To understand the meanings of "blackness" in the African diaspora, we must critically examine the paradigms that have emerged over the past five centuries out of Euroamerican racism and black liberation. These seminal volumes add immeasurably to our understanding of those paradigms and of the black experience in Central America, South America, and the Caribbean.</P>