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The Imbalance of Power demonstrates that the indigenous societies of the Guiana region of Amazonia do not fit conventional characterizations of 'simple' political units with 'egalitarian' political ideologies and 'harmonious' relationships with nature.

In the century after the French Revolution, the South American outpost of Guiana became a depository for exiles—outcasts of the new French citizenry—and an experimental space for the exercise of new kinds of power and violence against marginal groups. Miranda Spieler chronicles the encounter between colonial officials, planters, and others, ranging from deported political enemies to convicts, ex-convicts, vagabonds, freed slaves, non-European immigrants, and Maroons (descendants of fugitive slaves in the forest). She finds that at a time when France was advocating the revolutionary principles of liberty, equality, and fraternity, Guiana's exiles were stripped of their legal identities and unmade by law, becoming nonpersons living in limbo. The French Revolution invented the notion of the citizen, but as Spieler shows, it also invented the noncitizen—the person whose rights were nonexistent. Empire and Underworld discovers in Guiana's wilderness a haunting prehistory of current moral dilemmas surrounding detainees of indeterminate legal status. Pairing the history of France with that of its underworld and challenging some of the century's most influential theorists from Hannah Arendt to Michel Foucault, Spieler demonstrates how rights of the modern world can mutate into an apparatus of human deprivation.

In the Reclus-Perron cartographical collection held in the Public Library of Geneva, a recently discovered map by the explorer Henri Coudreau seems to have been essential, together with other published and unpublished cartographic materials, in deciding the 1900 Swiss arbitration of the Franco-Brazilian border dispute. These materials provide an opportunity not only to analyse the political power of maps, but also to explore a different European way of conceiving maps and geography, that of anarchist geographers, which diverged from the uncritical hagiographies of colonialism and geographical discoveries that were typical in European science during the Age of Empire (1875‒1914).

Amerindian societies have an iconic status in classical political thought. For Montaigne, Hobbes, Locke, Hume and Rousseau, the native American 'state of nature' operates as a foil for the European polity. Challenging this tradition,The Imbalance of Power demonstrates ethnographically that the Carib speaking indigenous societies of the Guiana region of Amazonia do not fit conventional characterizations of 'simple' political units with 'egalitarian' political ideologies and 'harmonious' relationships with nature. Marc Brightman builds a persuasive and original theory of Amerindian politics: far from balanced and egalitarian, Carib societies are rife with tension and difference; but this imbalance conditions social dynamism and a distinctive mode of cohesion.The Imbalance of Power is based on the author's fieldwork in partnership with Vanessa Grotti, who is working on a companion volume entitledLiving with the Enemy: First Contacts and the Making of Christian Bodies in Amazonia.

French Guiana, a French overseas region, remains highly dependent on imported fossil fuels. French Guiana is undergoing a veritable energy paradox with, on the one hand, an abundance of renewable energy resources and, on the other hand, a slow exploitation of electricity which is derived from renewables. Despite favorable sunshine conditions, investments in photovoltaic (PV) projects in French Guiana are not emerging as quickly as they should in view of the growing electricity demand. Through a SWOT analysis this article reviews the challenges and prospects for renewable energy development in French Guiana. It also offers an economic analysis of a grid-connected PV project, integrating sensitivity analyzes, and Monte Carlo simulations. The study is intended to provide project leaders with important information on the economic and financial profitability of PV systems and highlights their relatively low energy production cost in French Guiana.

The French Revolution invented the notion of the citizen, but it also invented the noncitizen—the person whose rights were nonexistent. The South American outpost of Guiana became a depository for these outcasts of the new French citizenry, and an experimental space for the exercise of new kinds of power and violence against marginal groups.

Traditionally, social scientists have assumed that past imperialism hinders the future development prospects of colonized nations. Challenging this widespread belief, Matthew Lange argues in Lineages of Despotism and Development that countries once under direct British imperial control have developed more successfully than those that were ruled indirectly. Combining statistical analysis with in-depth case studies of former British colonies, this volume argues that direct rule promoted cogent and coherent states with high levels of bureaucratization and inclusiveness, which contributed to implementing development policy during late colonialism and independence. On the other hand, Lange finds that indirect British rule created patrimonial, weak states that preyed on their own populations. Firmly grounded in the tradition of comparative-historical analysis while offering fresh insight into the colonial roots of uneven development, Lineages of Despotism and Development will interest economists, sociologists, and political scientists alike.

Between 1838 and 1920, over 200,000 Indians immigrated to British Guiana (BG) as indentured workers on sugar plantations (estates). During this period, different labor types (freedmen, indentured workers, and free immigrants) coexisted on the same BG estates and were paid the same wages for comparable tasks. In 1873, in response to a commission of enquiry to improve the treatment of workers, the BG legislature introduced the Livret system. Livrets were to be kept by each indentured worker and contain the cumulative wages earned during the indenture period. In theory, Livrets would promote greater productivity, help mitigate pay disputes, and enable hard-working immigrants to end their indenture in less than five years. This article describes the Livret system and speculates on the reasons for its introduction and early abandonment. It contributes to the growing body of literature that critically assesses the interface of accounting and labor during the British colonial period.

Plantations, especially sugar plantations, created slave societies and a racism persisting well into post-slavery periods: so runs a familiar argument that has been used to explain the sweep of Caribbean history. Here one of the most eminent scholars of modern social theory applies this assertion to a comparative study of most Caribbean islands from the time of the American Revolution to the Spanish American War. Arthur Stinchcombe uses insights from his own much admiredEconomic Sociologyto show why sugar planters needed the help of repressive governments for recruiting disciplined labor. Demonstrating that island-to-island variations on this theme were a function of geography, local political economy, and relation to outside powers, he scrutinizes Caribbean slavery and Caribbean emancipation movements in a world-historical context. Throughout the book, Stinchcombe aims to develop a sociology of freedom that explains a number of complex phenomena, such as how liberty for some individuals may restrict the liberty of others. Thus, the autonomous governments of colonies often produced more oppressive conditions for slaves than did so-called arbitrary governments, which had the power to restrict the whims of the planters. Even after emancipation, freedom was not a clear-cut matter of achieving the ideals of the Enlightenment. Indeed, it was often a route to a social control more efficient than slavery, providing greater flexibility for the planter class and posing less risk of violent rebellion.

This article attempts to enhance our understanding of the treaties made between Maroons and European colonial governments by viewing fragmentary historical data, both written and oral, alongside information on present-day Maroon life gathered by the author and a number of other anthropologists. It is argued that the data assembled from these varied sources can best be understood when interpreted with reference to what we know of oath-taking procedures in those African societies from which the Maroons' ancestors were drawn. This approach, combining history and comparative ethnography, can help us achieve a more balanced perspective on the treaties, the status of which remains unresolved in those countries where Maroons have survived as distinct populations until today.