The story of the banjo's journey from Africa to the western hemisphere blends music, history, and a union of cultures. In Banjo Roots and Branches, Robert B. Winans presents cutting-edge scholarship that covers the instrument's West African origins and its adaptations and circulation in the Caribbean and United States. The contributors provide detailed ethnographic and technical research on gourd lutes and ekonting in Africa and the banza in Haiti while also investigating tuning practices and regional playing styles. Other essays place the instrument within the context of slavery, tell the stories of black banjoists, and shed light on the banjo's introduction into the African- and Anglo-American folk milieus.

Wide-ranging and illustrated with twenty color images, Banjo Roots and Branches offers a wealth of new information to scholars of African American and folk musics as well as the worldwide community of banjo aficionados.

Contributors: Greg C. Adams, Nick Bamber, Jim Dalton, George R. Gibson, Chuck Levy, Shlomo Pestcoe, Pete Ross, Tony Thomas, Saskia Willaert, and Robert B. Winans.

By the end of the Sung dynasty (960-1279), known descendants of the three Chao brothers who had founded the dynasty numbered over 20,000. Unlike the rulers of many other Chinese dynasties, however, the Sung emperors were not plagued by challenges to their rule from their relatives. How the Sung created a social and political asset in the imperial clan while neutralizing it as a potential threat is the story of this book. In this, the first full-length study of the imperial clan as an institution, John Chaffee analyzes its history, its political role, and the lifestyle of its members, focussing on their residence patterns, marriages, and occupations.