"Carnaval, Carnival, Fasnacht, Entroido - the annual pre-Lenten festival most people in the United States know as Mardi Gras - is celebrated in cities and rural villages throughout Europe and the Americas. With more than 300 photographs, this book offers an international look at Carnival in New Orleans and Basile, Louisiana; Laza, Spain; rural Bulgaria; Venice, Italy; Basel, Switzerland; Tlaxcala, Mexico; Oruro, Bolivia; Recife and Olinda, Brazil; Port of Spain, Trinidad and Tobago; and Port-au-Prince, Haiti." "Whatever deeper religious or civic significance Carnival may hold for its participants, it is always a time of play, conviviality, and fantasy, a time when alternatives to the status quo can be imagined and people can feel unleashed from everyday restraints. This book is a joyous celebration of this many-faceted festival and a tribute to those who have kept their Carnival traditions alive."--BOOK JACKET.

Includes bibliographical references (p. 327-334) and index.

Foreword / Joyce Ice Acknowledgments / Barbara Mauldin 1. Introduction : carnival in Europe and the Americas / Barbara Mauldin 2. Entroido in Laza, Spain : a continuing rural carnival tradition / Mariana Regalado and Antonio Munoz Carrion 3. Mask and masquerade : from mysterious initiation to carnival in Bulgaria / Valeria Fol 4. The mask, the mist, and the mirror : Carnevale in Venice, Italy / Alessandro Falassi 5. Fasnacht in Basel, Switzerland : a carnival of contradictions / Peter Tokofsky

6. "That's my day" : Cajun country Mardi Gras in Basile, Louisiana, USA / Carl Lindahl 7. Ritual and play : carnaval in Nahua Indian communities of Tlaxcala, Mexico / Barbara Mauldin 8. Dancing for the virgin and the devil : Carnaval in Oruro, Bolivia / Cynthia LeCount Samake and Barbara Mauldin 9. Evoe! : the Carnaval of Recife and Olinda in Pernambuco, Brazil / Katarina Real 10. Playing Mas : carnival in Port of Spain, Trinidad and Tobago / John Nunley 11. "My heart don't stop" : Haiti, the carnival state / Donald Casentino 12. Mardi Gras in New Orleans, USA : annals of a queen / Jason Berry.