In the early 20th century, a group of ex-slaves built a frontier society in the southern highlands of Madagascar. Using certain customs, they created a land monopoly and excluded a class called andevo (slave descent). The book focuses on the andevo plight. 242pp. NETHERLANDS. EJ BRILL, 9004124608

As European colonists scrambled for control of Africa, a leader arose in the Madagascar who thwarted the combined ambitions of all the major world powers. That leader was no warrior but a diminutive woman of middle years, Ranavalona-Manjaka Queen of Madagascar, know to her subjects as Ma Dieu. Under Ranavalona's despotic rule, hundreds of thousands of her people, possibly one-half of Madagascar's entire population, were murdered, starved or simply worked to death by her express command, while she enjoyed an eccentric and debauched lifetyle. Index, bib, 224pp, UK. JOHN WILEY.

Examines one rural postcolonial people's efforts to retain their cultural identity in the aftermath of colonialism in order to better understand the interplay of social and individual memory and of the external and the local in postcolonial life. B/w illus, notes, refs, index, xvii, 361pp, USA. CALIFORNIA U P, 0520228464

Pirates, shipwreck and slavery - these are the key themes in the story of a young Englishman who spent fourteen years of his life in captivity in Madagascar during the eighteenth century. BNS, 24 b/w ill, 256pp, UK. SUTTON PUBLISHING, 0750929383

A survey of Madagascar's textiles as works of art and as objects imbued with great social and cultural significance. The author weaves discussions of cloth production and international diplomacy with popular representations of Madagascar and the Malagasy people in Europe and the United States. Other issues addressed include the history of American Malagasy relations and the significance of John Lewis Waller, a former slave who became American consul to Madagascar. Illustrated with b/w and colour photographs. Index, refs, gloss, 205pp, USA. WASHINGTON U P.

In this anthropological study of religion in Madagascar, the author shows how history shapes and illuminates the social world. The burden of the past for the Sakalava of Mahajanga is an everyday reality and informs all aspects of society from the division of labour to ritual and historical conciousness. Index, bib, notes, b/w photos, diags, xxi, 319pp, UK. PALGRAVE, 1403960682