World Music: The Rough Guide Editors Broughton, Ellingham, Muddyman & Trillo (Rough Guides Ltd., 697 pp., 1994)

Compiling almost all of the musical styles from every corner of the world is quite a daunting task, but this volume of The Rough Guide does a typically solid job.   Included amongst the nearly 700 pages of info is a 66-page section on the Caribbean, with 18 pages on reggae itself.  The Caribbean chapter covers everything from salsa and merengue to calypso, soca, and zouk, so you get an idea of the tastes that surround Jamaica and that indeed occasionally permeate reggae.  The reggae portion of the book reads like a very, very concise version of Reggae: The Rough Guide (natch).  With little room for details on specific artists (except for Bob Marley and Lee "Scratch" Perry), it focuses on tracing the development of the genre, from church music and Rastafarian drumming to mento and ska to rock steady and early reggae, dub, toasting, and dancehall.  Even coverage of British and African reggae is included.  Like Reggae: The Rough Guide, this book makes solid recommendations (over 60) on each sub-genre of reggae (as well as the other Caribbean musics), indicating if each album is available on CD and designating one CD as the starting point for each sub-genre.  Taking into account the brevity of the section, World Music: The Rough Guide does an efficient job of covering reggae, although when you consider that in music stores (in the U.S., at least), reggae generally has its own section, while other "world music" is lumped together, you have to think that 18 pages out of 700 short changes the genre.