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For David Lowenthal, the Caribbean was not simply an academic interest, it was a passionate personal concern for a place, its people, its geographical history and heritage—and the return of that heritage when stolen (a concern that also applied to other parts of the world). His enormous library was as weighted with novels by Caribbean authors as by history and geography texts, and they formed the basis of his book, West Indian Societies, the culmination of many years of detailed observation and investigation of the (non-Hispanic) Caribbean. Lowenthal's works on the Caribbean were to become significant reference points in interpretations of societal institutions and practices in the Caribbean and its diaspora and in the development of important new areas of research, such as environmental and landscape perception, islands and conservation and heritage studies. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]