FREE: The Rastafarians

The listing, The Rastafarians has ended.

A very good overview of Rastafarianism

Leonard E. Barrett, Sr., is graduate professor of religion at Temple University and the current printing of "The Rastafarians" is the twentieth anniversary edition of an important study of the society, culture, religion, history, ideology, and influence of the Rastafarians of Jamaica.

Professor Barrett has written a most comprehensive study of the Rastafarians, one perhaps deserving to be called a definitive study, spanning as it does the several decades of the movement's history. Professor Barrett is not a Rastaman, but is sympathetic to the movement and broadly if critically supportive of its aims.

I purchased this book for an introduction to to Rastafarianism, having been only very superficially acquainted with it. This is an ideal work for a reader to whom Rastafarianism is new as it provides a detailed yet brief history of Jamaica and the institution of slavery, the social cleavages that arose out of slavery, the lasting effects of colonialism and racial discrimination, and the history, doctrine, polity and ritual of the several Rastafarian groupings.

The book covers all the major doctrines of the religion, a history of it important personages, its social and political aims and contributions, and the various denominations within the tradition that have developed over the decades. I especially enjoyed the author's providing of some personal accounts of his interactions with Rastafarians in Jamaica.