REPRESENTATION AND IMAGES OF PEOPLE, PLACE AND NATURE IN GRENADA'S TOURISM

ABSTRACT. The purpose of this paper is to examine the visual images occurring in Grenada's place promotion materials. Tourism has become Grenada's principal source of foreign exchange and employment generation. With the increasing popularity of eco- and nature-tourism, the island has looked to this form of specialty tourism as a way to diversify its tourism product. Tourism is a uniquely visual industry; thus semiotics, the study of signs, was chosen for this study because of its ability to analyze the representations a tourist would encounter prior to reaching a destination or prior to participating in activities at the destination that would influence his or her expectations. Emphasis was placed on the images found in promotional materials and advertisements of Grenada to determine the mythology and ideology behind them. These images fell broadly into one of three categories: people, place or nature. Each category was represented as an 'other' that may be discussed in terms of dualities such as natural–artificial, exotic-familiar, and active-passive. The study concludes that images take on the myth of something different breaking the routine of the tourist's ordinary, daily life.     

Stable nitrogen isotopic examination of Norse sites in the Western settlement of Greenland

To continue to explore the impact of past human activity on the stable nitrogen isotope ratios of modern vegetation, we have measured the δ¹⁵N values of plants now growing on several ancient farmsteads in the Western Settlement of Norse Greenland. Although this new test area is some 400 km north and in a different ecoregion from the previous study area, the same isotopic effect was observed. A clear isotopic signature was found on the ancient farms which could be directly correlated to past activity areas; in particular, the infields. Further, the magnitude of the δ¹⁵N values was found to be similar between study areas, indicating the same interpretative framework can be applied in widely separate geographic regions. A first test of different plant species showed that although the magnitude differed greatly the same basic information was found for functionally different plants. These observations provide additional information to aid in future archaeological application of this newly observed phenomenon.     

Book reviews—comptes rendus

Seventeenth‐Century France—France du dix‐septième siècle

Thomas WORCESTER, Seventeenth‐Century Cultural Discourse: France and the Preaching of Bishop Camus, Mouten de Gruyter, Berlin & New York, 1997, ix + 306p., ISBN 3–11–015220–7 DM 228

John A. LYNN, Giant of the Grand Siècle. The French Army 1610–1715, Cambridge University Press, Cambridge, 1997, 651pp. £45 ISBN 0 521 57273 8.

Themes in Cultural History—Thèmes en histoire culturelle

Susan PLANN, A Silent Minority: Deaf Education in Spain, 1550–1835, University of California Press, Berkeley, California & London, 1997, xvi + 323 pp. £40.

Charles DIERICK and Pascal LEFEVRE eds., Forging a New Medium: The Comic Strip in the Nineteenth Century, VUB University Press, Brussels, 1998.

Larry WOLFF, Inventing Eastern Europe: The Map of Civilization on the Mind of Enlightenment, Stanford University Press, Stanford 1994. xii + 419 pp. Paperback, £15.95.

Social History—Histoire sociale

Ann‐Louise SHAPIRO, Breaking the Codes: Female Criminality in Fin‐de‐siècle Paris, Stanford University Press, Stanford, 1996, pp. viii + 265, ISBN 0–8047–2 693–0.

Nancy GREEN, Du Sentier à la 7e avenue. La confection et les immigrés, Paris‐New York, 1880–1980, Paris, Le Seuil, collection “L'univers historique”, 1998.

Nancy GREEN, Ready‐To‐Wear and Ready‐To‐Work. A Century of Industry and immigrants in Paris and New York, Duke University Press, 1997.

Lewis J. EDINGER & Brigitte L. NACOS, From Bonn to Berlin. German politics in transition, Columbia University Press, New York, 1998, ISBN 023108413729 £13.50£39.50

Themes in European Politics—Aspects du politique européenne

Dimitrije DJORDJEVIC, Scars and Memory: Four Lives in One Lifetime, Boulder, East European Monographs, 1997, pp. 463, ISBN 0–88033–368–5, £34.

Grigor MCCLELLAND, Embers of War: Letters from a Quaker reliefworker in war‐torn Germany, IB Tauris 1997, pp. xxiii + 230, ISBN 1–86064–312–4, £25.

Michael BERKOWITZ Western Jewry and the Zionist project, 1914–1933, Cambridge, Cambridge University Press, 1997, ISBN 0 521 47087 0 hardback £40

Paul W. DOERR, British foreign policy 1919–1939, Manchester, Manchester University Press 1998, ISBN hb: 0–7190–4671–8 pb:0–7190–4672–6. £45.00 (hb) £14.99 (pb).