Oceania Books

"Any news of M. de la Perouse?", Louis XVI is said to have asked before his execution. Jean Francois de Galloupe de La Perouse, who famously visited Botany Bay (modern Sydney, Australia) in January 1788, precisely the same time the founding First Fleet arrived - only to vanish thereafter - was the greatest and most romantic of the French Pacific explorers. He served with distinction in the Seven Years' War and the Wars of the American Revolution, famously raiding the British commercial bases in Hudson Bay in the early 1780s. He also plied the trade routes between Mauritius (then Isle De France) and India. Based on his talent, and the then government's desire to best the exploits of James Cook, he was selected for a great Voyage of Discovery. Among his many achievements was finding La Perouse Strait (between the Japanese and Russian islands of the North-West Pacific). Tragically, after visiting the British colony in New South Wales, his ships disappeared somewhere off Samoa - and his fate remained an enigma for the French people until the 1960s. Dunmore's narrative brings us both the splendor and the tragedy of La Perouse's career.

Pacific Images by Nordyke and Mattison gives an outstanding history of Captain James Cooks third voyage, from 1776 to 1780. The reproduction of words and pictures from this voyage brings together preceptions of the journalists and artists of the time. The pictures include animals and people (body piercing is not a new thing!) as well as activities of the peoples with sweeping views of the landscape. The authors did an excellent job of presenting the facts in vivid detail after two decades of research. This book not only looks like it belongs on every coffee table, but also can be used as an excellent historical resource.

This book is a history of all of the Pacific Islands. Oliver was trained as an anthropologist and lived for an extended period in the region. He draws on both his training and personal knowledge to not only describe the different islands and their groupings, but also to analyze the reasons for their cultural, political, and economic differences.

The book is divided into three main sections and an epilogue. In the first section, The Islanders, Oliver recounts the prehistory of the islands, noting their geological origin and development. He also discusses the first settlers of the islands, and how and why anthropologists have grouped them into Melanesians, Polynesians, and Micronesians. In the second section, The Aliens, Oliver turns to the subject of contact with Westerners, taking up explorers, whalers, traders, missionaries, planters, blackbirders, merchants, and miners in turn.

The third section, Metamorphosis, is the most extensive. In this section, Oliver identifies strong influences on development in the region, and traces how they have affected the history of each particular island group or island. For example, he notes how the development of a coconut economy was primary in islands such as Western Samoa or the Solomons, while sugar dominated the history of Hawaii and Fiji. Other influences were missionaries (Tonga), Mining (Nauru, New Caledonia), and Bases (American Samoa, Guam). This island-by-island analysis is followed by an epilogue, in which Oliver describes some of the ways in which the islanders and cultures have both lost and gained by their being brought into the international community. The events of World War II are also described briefly, but at the time when the book was originally written, the longer-lasting effects of the war had not yet become clear.

For a history book, the text is exceptionally clear and engaging. The analytical approach helps tie in details and makes the overall picture of the broad region much more comprehensible. The text is not footnoted, but at the end of the book, there is an extensive list of primary sources and suggested readings, organized topically. There is also an index.

The Pacific islands sure look different when viewed from Down Under than they do from up here in Hawaii. That makes "The Pacific Islands" a valuable effort both absolutely and relatively.
Absolutely, because it offers a coherent overview of the Pacific islands, of which there have been several over the years, but none quite like this. Douglas Oliver's two-volume "Oceania," published nearly two decades ago and based on a book he first published in 1942, can be regarded as an extended essay on the Pacific.
Brij Lal and Kate Fortune's "The Pacific Islands," if read through, has somewhat the same feel -- less elegantly put than Oliver's, because it is organized by topics -- but updated by several years, in which much has changed.
Though Hawaii's status in the Pacific is paramount in economics, culture and modernity, it occupies a relatively small portion of this encyclopedia.
There could be two reasons for this, both sensible.
One, unlike the small nations of the Pacific, just about anything you want to know about Hawaii (including a great deal that isn't so) is already available, so it makes sense to devote relatively more space to the lesser known areas.
Two, Lal and Fortune are scholars at the Australian National University, and their encyclopedia was financed by Australian foreign aid, so it follows that the South Pacific gets more attention. Micronesia is also skimped, relatively.
Scarcely one earthling in a thousand is a Pacific islander, and most of them are poor, isolated and, by any likely evolution of the world economy, foredoomed to remain so.
In an economic discussion, contributor John Overton writes "the prospects of successful competition by Pacific commodities on open world markets are poor indeed."
Similar instances of such beady-eyed caution are uncommon. The tone of "The Pacific Islands" is upbeat.
Too upbeat in the case of Fiji's fraught constitutional troubles. (Lal was personally involved in trying to sort these out. When this book was written, her optimism was not hopeless. Things have deteriorated.)
In fact, sometimes the articles have more the character of sermons than of reference reports. The outstanding example is the article on "Higher education for Pacific islanders" by 'I Futa Helu, a revered figure in Pacific islander education.
Throughout, one gets a close feel for how compressed the modern story of the islands is. The first colony to gain independence, Samoa, did so as recently as 1962. In places like Solomon Islands, modern institutions of various sorts did not arrive until the 1970s, '80s or even '90s.
It is a testimony to the strong cultural and kinship values of Pacific islanders -- a recurrent theme of Lal and Fortune's -- that the various communities have held up as well as they have. Seldom have so few had to put up with so much in such a short time.
The importance of organized sport also comes as something of a surprise. Here in Hawaii, we tend to receive more news of culture, one way or another, from the small island states. In this encyclopedia, sports receives nearly as much space. The "Hong Kong Sevens" (an islander variant of rugby) are a major event down south. Few in Hawaii, except immigrants, have ever heard of the sport.
That the book was written from an antipodean perspective shows up in occasionally amusing phrasing: National Football League games are called "matches," for example.
But there is also plenty of input from Hawaii. This is most noticeable on a particularly touchy subject, the constitutional history of Palau, which is related in three places. One article, by the well-known ax-grinder Stewart Firth, manages to be misleading by selective presentation without making statements that are factually incorrect. The same subject treated by Robert Kiste of the University of Hawaii is more balanced. The brief statement in the nation profile (by Kiste and Fortune) is so bland that the sizzle of this topic would be missed by the unprepared reader.
Another example of how perspective affects perception comes in the profile of Hawaii. The principal export earners for the state are listed as tourism, fishing, sugar and pineapple.
This was just reflex. Fishing is the principal -- in several cases, the only -- meaningful export of several of the two dozen or so island states. But it is trivial in Hawaii and will become even more trivial now that the best grounds, in the Northwestern Islands, are being put off limits, a new development since this book was published.
The Hawaii State Data Book is not helpful on fish exports, but total catch in state waters is valued at only a little over $50 million a year. Hawaii is a net seafood importer.
The encyclopedia comes with a CD-ROM which is searchable and has more maps than the printed text. It is supposed to be compatible with both Macs and PCs. It worked fine on a Mac, not at all on a PC with the same (Adobe) software.

I stumbled across this book by accident in my father's bookshelf, and started reading it on a rather uneventful Sunday afternoon. I have always been interested in sailing, but this book really lit a fire under me to go cruising. I've since re-read this book and am still planning my dream cruise to the south pacific. The book talks about the Cornell family (parents and 2 young kids) spending 3 years sailing in the pacific. their story of visiting Pitcairn's Island forced me to reread Mutiny on the Bounty. It is a delightful read, and makes me wish my parents had taken me on a long sailing journey as a child. By the way, Gwenda is married to Jimmy Cornell, who has written a number of cruising books. Pacific Odyssey is a great read, but beware, you may not be able to get rid of the cruising bug. I know I haven't.

I first read PACIFIC RISING in 1991, the year of publication and felt it was the absolute best overview of the Pacific I'd ever read. I'm not sure I've changed my mind, despite the intervening years. Mr Winchester, who lived in Hong Kong, connects Peru with Indonesia; Korea with Seattle; Guam with Panama. The book is filled with anecdotes and factoids, all of them interesting and worth knowing, but he never loses an academic focus. This is an absolute must for anyone who wants to understand what "the Pacific" is all about.

It is hard to imagine now how isolated most Pacific islands were on the eve of Pearl Harbor. Sudest in the Coral Sea was a British "colony," but no representative of the government had visited since 1934.
Sudest society had undergone big changes as a result of Western contact, but the war lifted these effects to a much higher level.
Not until 1985, however, did Western scholars begin to consider formally how the islanders reacted to the war. It comes as no surprise to find that it is regarded on most islands as one of the two most significant events in history. (The other was the coming of the missionaries; and if critics of Eurocentrism want to carp, let them imagine whether the arrival of Martians would demote the relative significance of, say, the Civil War in the memories of Americans.)
One thing the anthropologists soon learned is that today, islanders temper their response according to the nationality of the anthropologist. Japanese investigators receive a generally positive impression of Japanese-islander relations, while the same islanders tell an opposite story to Americans.
Nobody has anything good to say about the Australians, however.
By accident, the Americans always did the one thing guaranteed to generate the best response from islanders: They gave food without expecting food in return. They had no idea that food exchange is the central social activity in the Pacific.
The Americans also were perceived as racial egalitarians. Although U.S. servicemen were segregated in those days, it did not appear so to islanders. Black G.I.s wore the same clothes and ate the same food as white G.I.s, which was new to the islanders.
Furthermore, the Americans, whatever their ideological views about blacks and whites back home, tended to treat everyone the same. Editors Geoffrey White and Lamont Lindstrom write that "islanders from many areas still recount their surprise and pleasure when asked to share a meal with servicemen."
Islander responses were far from uniform. Although, overall, America enjoys a high reputation in the South Pacific -- many islanders would like to unite with the U.S.A. -- there were some violent dissents. In the case of a few extreme cargo cults, there was an attempt after the war to murder or expel all the whites.
But for the most part, the enduring effects of the war were not between political groups but between individuals. Sikaiana women inverted the American stereotype of seductive island girls and composed songs rhapsodizing over alluring American boys, and their granddaughters are being taught those songs today.

Business historian Mansel Blackford does a fine job in highlighting several key environmental issues concerning U.S. development in the region known as the "Pacific Rim." As Blackford himself points out in his conclusion, there have been many environmental studies done on particular issues in the Pacific. Many of these have tended to be highly detailed and technical, and therefore not acessible to the general public. One of the positive aspects of this book is that it is highly readable, quite a feat when considering the complex issues Blackford tackles in his book.

I found Blackford's chapter on the island of Guam particularly fascinating. Here, Blackford focuses on three important issues: the controversy over the U.S. Navy's decision in the early 1970s to build an ammunition wharf at Sella Bay, efforts by the Federal Government to establish two national parks during the same period, and the devestating enviromental impact of the brown tree snake. Blackford ultimately argues that the Navy was forced to incorporate political, cultural, and environmental concerns into a compromise package that spared Sella Bay, and which helped spur the development of tourism on Guam.

I also found Blackford's analysis of legislator and Chamorro rights activist Paul Bordallo surprisingly nuanced and incisive. Blackford largely avoids the binary trap of "government" versus "natives" by illustrating the opposition Bordallo faced from Chamorros and local residents, as well as U.S. Navy and Federal officials, in fighting to stop development at Sella Bay. Guam government officials and businessmen saw a good deal in exchanging Sella Bay with the Navy for greater civillian access to port facilities in Apra Harbor. Bordallo disagreed, arguing that Sella Bay's pristine environment must be preserved for future generations of Chamorros, local residents, and tourists to enjoy. Bordallo's vision, with the support of fifteen thousand signatures from local residents, ultimately prevailed, and one of Guam's most scenic locations was spared from becoming an ammunition wharf.

Overall, "Pathways to the Present" is a well-written examination of several cases of U.S. development in the Pacific Rim. Blackford does an excellent job in including both the "big picture" issues and the smaller "pictures" of indigeneous peoples, local residents, and individuals. I'd highly recommend this book to anyone familiar or unfamiliar with U.S.-Pacific history.

Penina Uliulu is a rare and precious black pearl of the Pacific. This book uses its title as metaphor; its aim is to be a "precious, rare, and colourful resource" for the current issues in mental health of Pacific peoples. It is, of course, refreshing to encounter studies of Pacific people written by Pacific people themselves. It is also rare, precious, and colourful to find so many voices unified by their Pacific distinctiveness yet reflective of their own unique cultures and experiences. This edited volume contains nineteen contributions, consisting of mainly essays, but also interviews and poetry. The end of the book includes a substantial categorized bibliography pointing to further resource material in Pasifika mental health. Divided into four sections, the book covers the broad topics of Pacific identities, spirituality, the Pacific unconscious, and trauma and healing.
The subjectivity and attached perspective of the essayists is definitely a major strength of the book. While the contributors are readily equipped to avoid the pitfalls of assumed Western objectivity, their first hand experiences are written down carefully and critically, unafraid to analyse and critique the sometimes negative aspects of their own cultures. This leads to an insightful read not only for Pacific people, but also those interested in learning how Pacific people see themselves.

Initially skeptical that this book would deliver an accurate depiction of life in Perth, as so few books have in the past, I am pleased to say I was completely misguided in my cynicism. As an Aussie expat travelling the world, moving to somewhere new every 2-4 years I was keen to find a coffee table book that would be both interesting, beautiful to look at and above all informative and accurate, this book is all of those things and more! This is the perfect gift but be sure to get one to keep...makes me homesick every time I turn the pages. It has been the perfect way to say thank you and help show people where I am from.