A Green Estate: Restoring Independence in Madagascar

Washington DC: Smithsonian Institution, 1991. 1st. Hardcover. Very Good/Very Good. Hardcover in a dust jacket with fading to spine, A Green Estate traces the effect of French domination through the colonial period and into the years after official Malagasy independence in 1960. The book reveals how the people of northwest Madagascar have reasserted their ownership of the land and reclaimed their heritage through a ritual reburial of a king who died at the height of the colonial era...by analyzing the long dialogue between the French & the Malagasy over monarchy, gender, death, land, work and taxes, French rule, she shows,resulted in the imposition of provincial centers of government and commerce that diverted attention and labor from agricultural villages and religious centers. 36 plates, maps. Record # 378960