Fifty years after the arrival of Columbus, at the height of Spain's conquest of the West Indies, Spanish bishop and colonist Bartolome de las Casas dedicated his Brevisima Relacion de la Destruicion de las Indias to Philip II of Spain. An impassioned plea on behalf of the native peoples of the West Indies, the Brevisima Relacion catalogues in horrific detail atrocities it attributes to the king's colonists in the New World. The result is a withering indictment of the conquerors that has cast a 500-year shadow over the subsequent history of that world and the European colonization of it. Andrew Hurley's daring new translation dramatically foreshortens that 500 years by reversing the usual priority of a translation; rather than bring the Brevisima Relacion to the reader, it brings the reader to the Brevisima Relacion -- not as it is, but as it might have been, had it been originally written in English. The translator thus allows himself no words or devices unavailable in English by 1560, and in so doing reveals the prophetic voice, urgency and clarity of the work, qualities often obscured in modern translations. An Introduction by Franklin Knight, notes, a map, and a judicious set of

Diasporas comprise an inescapable part of the human experience and few are more interesting and diverse than African diasporas. By providing a panoramic view across time and geographical space this collection of essays illustrates the inherent variability of African, European and Asian diasporic formation. Even when such communities share a common origin, diasporas behave like living organisms that respond sensitively to specific geographical location as well as particular social, political and economic circumstances. Migration constitutes an essential prerequisite for diasporic formation. Once established diasporas assume a life of their own and sometimes form secondary diasporas and their histories make a significant contribution to comparative societal studies.

Fifty years after the arrival of Columbus, at the height of Spain's conquest of the West Indies, Spanish bishop and colonist Bartolome de las Casas dedicated his Brevisima Relacion de la Destruicion de las Indias to Philip II of Spain. An impassioned plea on behalf of the native peoples of the West Indies, the Brevisima Relacion catalogues in horrific detail atrocities it attributes to the king's colonists in the New World. The result is a withering indictment of the conquerors that has cast a 500-year shadow over the subsequent history of that world and the European colonisation of it. Andrew Hurley's daring new translation dramatically foreshortens that 500 years by reversing the usual priority of a translation; rather than bring the Brevisima Relacion to the reader, it brings the reader to the Brevisima Relacion -- not as it is, but as it might have been, had it been originally written in English. The translator thus allows himself no words or devices unavailable in English by 1560, and in so doing reveals the prophetic voice, urgency and clarity of the work, qualities often obscured in modern translations. An Introduction by Franklin Knight, notes, a map, and a judicious set of