Road Belong Cargo: A Study Of The Cargo Movement In The Southern Madang District, New Guinea
Condition: SECONDHAND
This is a secondhand book. The jacket image is a photograph of the exact copy we have in stock. This image shows the condition of this book. Further condition remarks are below.
Condition remarks:
Book: Good
Jacket: No dust jacket
Pages: Good
Condition remarks: Condition as shown in image
In the remote Southern Madang District of New Guinea, a profound and unsettling drama unfolded — one in which indigenous Melanesian communities, confronted with the overwhelming power of colonial modernity, turned to a visionary religious movement promising the miraculous delivery of European goods, or cargo, as divine justice. Road Belong Cargo is Peter Lawrence's landmark anthropological study of this Cargo Movement, a phenomenon that captivated and confounded Western observers for decades. Lawrence chronicles the origins, development, and social logic of Cargo cults with meticulous fieldwork and scholarly rigour, presenting a nuanced portrait of a people striving to reconcile their traditional cosmology with the bewildering realities of colonial encounter. Lawrence's work stands as one of the most significant contributions to Melanesian anthropology of the twentieth century, arguing powerfully that Cargo movements were not irrational outbursts of a primitive mind, but coherent and deeply rational responses to cultural disruption and economic inequality. His prose is precise yet deeply humane, illuminating the internal logic of belief systems that Western observers too readily dismissed. Co-published by Melbourne University Press and Manchester University Press, this volume remains an essential text for anyone seeking to understand the complex interplay of religion, power, and resistance in the colonial Pacific — and raises enduring questions about what people believe when the world as they know it is turned upside down.
Author: Peter Lawrence
Format: Paperback
Genre: Anthropology
Condition remarks:
Book: Good
Jacket: No dust jacket
Pages: Good
Condition remarks: Condition as shown in image
In the remote Southern Madang District of New Guinea, a profound and unsettling drama unfolded — one in which indigenous Melanesian communities, confronted with the overwhelming power of colonial modernity, turned to a visionary religious movement promising the miraculous delivery of European goods, or cargo, as divine justice. Road Belong Cargo is Peter Lawrence's landmark anthropological study of this Cargo Movement, a phenomenon that captivated and confounded Western observers for decades. Lawrence chronicles the origins, development, and social logic of Cargo cults with meticulous fieldwork and scholarly rigour, presenting a nuanced portrait of a people striving to reconcile their traditional cosmology with the bewildering realities of colonial encounter. Lawrence's work stands as one of the most significant contributions to Melanesian anthropology of the twentieth century, arguing powerfully that Cargo movements were not irrational outbursts of a primitive mind, but coherent and deeply rational responses to cultural disruption and economic inequality. His prose is precise yet deeply humane, illuminating the internal logic of belief systems that Western observers too readily dismissed. Co-published by Melbourne University Press and Manchester University Press, this volume remains an essential text for anyone seeking to understand the complex interplay of religion, power, and resistance in the colonial Pacific — and raises enduring questions about what people believe when the world as they know it is turned upside down.