Review by Choice Review
This welcome volume explores the growth and persistence of Rastafarianism in Jamaica. Price (College of Education and Human Development, Temple Univ.) outlines ways in which the religion dramatically altered Jamaican perceptions of race, nationality, and Christianity since emerging in 1930. In his Becoming Rasta (CH, Feb'10, 47-3254), Price dealt with individual conversions to Rastafarianism. In the present book, he examines the faith from an institutional perspective. He provides an exceptionally empathetic account of the faith, and in his sophisticated analysis he successfully integrates the "small acts" of history with the "big ideas" they have come to signify. According to Price, Rastafarian collective identity was largely molded by members' experiences with nonmembers. He argues that the growth and persistence of the religion may have been fostered by media attempts to suppress it, e.g., in Jamaican newspapers such as the Daily Gleaner. Chapter 10, "New Challenges for the Rastafari," is outstanding. In it, Price addresses two major issues--the commodification of Rastafarianism and changing gender roles within the religion. Price writes that Rastafari women began questioning the faith's gendered practices in the early 1980s but warns that how Rastafari men will address women's concerns going forward "remains to be seen" (p. 277). Summing Up: Recommended. Upper-division undergraduates through faculty; general readers. --Stephen D. Glazier, Yale University
Copyright American Library Association, used with permission.
Review by Choice Review
