Yali's Question: Sugar, Culture, and History

by Frederick K. Errington, Deborah B. Gewertz

Yali's Question is the story of a remarkable physical and social creation—Ramu Sugar Limited (RSL), a sugar plantation created in a remote part of Papua New Guinea. As an embodiment of imported industrial production, RSL's smoke-belching, steam-shrieking factory and vast fields of carefully tended sugar cane contrast sharply with the surrounding grassland. RSL not only dominates the landscape, but also shapes those culturally diverse thousands who left their homes to work there.

To understand the creation of such a startling place, Frederick Errington and Deborah Gewertz explore the perspectives of the diverse participants that had a hand in its creation. In examining these views, they also consider those of Yali, a local Papua New Guinean political leader. Significantly, Yali features not only in the story of RSL, but also in Jared Diamond's Pulitzer Prize winning world history Guns, Germs, and Steel —a history probed through its contrast with RSL's. The authors' disagreement with Diamond stems, not from the generality of his focus and the specificity of theirs, but from a difference in view about how history is made—and from an insistence that those with power be held accountable for affecting history.

Genres: Nonfiction, Anthropology

360 pages, Paperback

First published November 15, 2004

Reviews

[João Paulo Pessoa · Rating 4 out of 5]

Diferentemente de Armas, Germes e Aço (Jared Diamond), este livro busca responder a pergunta de Yali sem se aventurar pela história geral da humanidade, buscando focar mais especificamente na história da Papua Nova Guiné em si e na sua complexidade. Ainda que não seja uma resposta definitiva para Yali, com certeza é um complemento e, em certo ponto, uma correção ao livro do Jared Diamond.