Oceania Books

This is a good starting point for every student who have just started to explore Tajikistan and its Soviet and post-Soviet history.
Extensive systematized bibliographyis also very helpful.

This is a good starting point for every student who have just started to explore Tajikistan and its Soviet and post-Soviet history.
Extensive systematized bibliographyis also very helpful.

An interesting, if brief, overview. The work takes a quick look at the origins of Australian indigenous literature, from when it was not believed that it was possible, to when it was suppressed and discouraged, and talks about the few examples that survive.

The major focus is on more modern work.

I was looking for a collection of short stories from Aboriginies of Australia, and this is not it. It is, however, a collection of essays about Indigenous Literature, from a cultural criticism point of view. Probably a wonderful resource, if you're headed for an advanced degree somewhere.

great information on new zealand cities and points of interest,historical & commercial. excellent itineraries with photography to give you a true sense of the trip, including physical requirements. recommend it highly for a first-time visitor!

This is a colorful book with lots of pictures about New Zealand. Its first couple of chapters include the history and culture of New Zealand are especially interesting. They were very useful for visitors to the Kiwi country. However, its lack of large street maps, area maps and detail route maps are disappointing as well as annoying. Although the front cover has an overview map of both the north & south island, I think it will improve the ease of reading and research if various level of district maps and street maps are provided, especially when a traveller was deciding which hotel/motel to book reservations and how far he/she needs to drive from one scenic spot to the next. Without this, it is disasterous for travel planning. Other things to include will be web sites for driving directions such as www.wises.co.nz etc. For a backpack traveller like me, I will even be willing to pay more if road maps/ street map of Auckland are included with the book (which some of the publishers are already doing).

I've been to Papua New Guinea, and I found this a very enjoyable read. Isabella Tree lets you get to know the people she meets, and her writing style really takes you along with her. This is just a short note to say "give this one a try."

Islands in the Clouds is one of the better travelogues to come out as part of the Lonely Planet Journeys series. Tree gives a good overview of the history, sociology and culture of the highlands of Papua New Guinea in an well-paced, beautifully written tale. Adding to the value of the book is its Tok Pisin glossary, which makes for a nice introduction to the pidgin/creole language of PNG.

I came at this book with an interest in Mansfield (and to a lesser extent Woolf) and was tired of the countless studies (chapters and essays) comapring the two. Needless to say, then, I approached this study with trepidation and assumed I would not think much of it. But what a surprise! Smith has done a terrific job with her research and has produced a study that towers over the others I've seen. The study smells of sweat and hard work. I put it alongside Sidney Janet Kaplan's and Patricia Dunbar's studies of Mansfield. It is one of the best.

I came at this book from the Mansfield camp and a little exhausted by all of the stale comparisons between Mansfield and Woolf. However, Smith's work is full of well-researched and thoughtful analysis. It's an amazing study--particularly of Mansfield, I think--and one that belongs on the same shelf as Kaplan's KM & THE ORIGINS OF MODERNIST FICTION and Dunbar's RADICAL MANSFIELD. Essential reading for Mansfield scholars and fans alike.

This is an illustrated children's book. It takes the true story of an Australian historical character and bushranger, Moondyne Joe, and turns it into an illustrated version for children. This is not too bad at all, and if you are after a simple adventure picture book for an young aussie kid, no reason not to get something like this.

Mark Greenwood's The Legend Of Moondyne Joe is an legend of the greatest escape artist of the era when Australia was used a prison destination by Great Britain. Moondyne Joe was not gunfighter or a bank robber, but rather a thief with the uncanny ability to regain freedom every time he was put behind bars. The simple, color illustrations by Frane Lessac bring life to a vivid legend in this charming story which is highly recommended for young readers.

It's a good regional guide, but you should consider it if you're staying lot of time and doing lot of activities in queensland. The Lonely Planet australia is enought for the 'basic knowledge' of the region.
Consider it ONLY if you wanna "research" DEEPLY in queensland.

LP does a great job, as usual, of detailing the less expensive ways to get around. I find that when they say a place is less-frequented, they are often right, at least for now.

Somewhat disappointing for a LP guide, lots of text but not as much "meat". After travelling in the Solomons and talking with others one gets the impression that the author did quite limited travelling throughout the islands and largely relied on other's reports. The hike to Mataniko Falls is way more strenuous and dangerous than hinted. (It is still an awesome sight, especially if you're a caver) Likewise a hike along the Weather Coast is more challenging than one would gather from the text, there are places where villagers go by boat because of the vertical exposure. Makira Island is only marginal habitat for salt-water crocodiles according to a Conservation International report and not as abundant as stated in the guide. Given the dearth of information about the Solomons it is still worth buying, but prudence is recommended.

This is the last edition of Lonely Planet's Solomon Islands guide.
It has not been updated since the mid-90es, and has in theory been replaced by the publisher's 2005 "Papua New Guinea & Solomon Islands" guide, which in reality only devotes fewer than 30 pages to the Solomon Islands, completely ignoring half the country's provinces, concentraiting on Honiara and a few popular tourist spots instead.

This edition (or the nearly identical 2nd edition), in contrast, covers the entire archipelago in amazing detail, all the way from the Treasury Islands in the West to the remote Polynesian outliers of Tikopia and Anuta in the East.
Each major province and island is described in good detail, and is shown on a good map.
Needless to say, some things have changed - however in the Solomons they have probably changed much less than in most of the rest of the World!
I travelled in the country in 2005, and found myself using this book almost all the time, with the then brand new PNG & Solomons guide quickly buried to the depths of my backpack.

If you want to actually travel around this least visited corner of Melanesia, rather than just have a short holiday on a resort island in Western province, and especially if exploring remote islands and hiking remote mountains and shorelines is your thing, this book is definitely the one to take.
It is also highly recommended for those with a general interest in the country, as travel practicalities apart, the background info on the culture, geography and fauna of the Solomons is still better than I have found in any other single book.

This is a very well-researched discourse about the history of knitting and spinning in New Zealand. The book takes you from the early days of the English and Scots settlement of the twin islands up to present day, and reveals how knitting fit into daily life.

A good portion of the book is devoted to war knitting, which was a major volunteer activity in World War I and somewhat less, but still important in World War II. The interesting theme that runs through "The Loving Stitch" is that of privation and shortages; knitting yarn was often hard to obtain. During rationing in World War II, baby yarn was almost impossible to get, yet people were limited in clothing coupons. What to do for a newborn who needs clothes and plenty of them? The ingenuity of the Kiwis who wanted or needed to knit was amazing--#8 fencing wire became needles, tapestry yarn (not rationed) patiently gathered until enough was available to make a vest. One enterprising young girl unraveled loosely-woven sugar sacks to make a child's sweater. All this is of course set against the ironic background that New Zealand is a world-class producer of wool. Yet raw wool was merely sent overseas to be spun into carpet and other wool, and the New Zealanders found that the finished product, knitting wool, was hard to obtain and expensive, too.

What I found odd in this book were a couple of omissions and subjects only briefly touched one. One was the contribution to knitting by New Zealander Margaret Stove. She is contemporary, but this book does go up to present day, and including her would have been appropriate. I expected to see pictures of here handspun lace designs and perhaps a short section on how she learned handspinning (with a wheel and raw fleece donated by her sister so she, a schoolteacher on a limited budget, could clothe her family) . But Stove only merits a brief mention in the index. Other contemporary artists' knitting was pictured, so this omission seemed odd to me, especially because Mrs. Stove is well-known worldwide among handspinners.

The other deficiency was that Kiwicraft, which is a technique handrolling wool roving to make a thick and attractive yarn, was mentioned but the Kiwicraft yarns were not pictured. In general, the contribution and collaboration by Maori women was obliquely mentioned. While knitting and spinning is a Western contribution to New Zealand history, Kiwicraft was developed by a collaboration of missionaries and native women, and merited more illustration. It's unique to New Zealand. I wanted to know more and see more about it.

However, for a history of knitting, this is a fine addition to the library and is a fascinating insight into life in New Zealand.

My family is from New Zealand thought I have always lived in Singapore (so naturally, I'm the only one to knit). I picked up this book while down there on holiday. Now a little creased from being loaned out around the family, this is a treasure. If you don't knit, it's a wonderful way of looking at New Zealand domestically for the last century - the archive photos are fascinating, the details packed in and always a real sense of love for the craft and respect for the many women (and few men) who knit.

If you do knit, it's great to read an entire book about other people who knit. No techniques,s ource ideas, just a lot of interesting and occasionally inspiring stories (The baby layette laid out to dry and eaten by a goat...)

Heather Nicholson writes fluidly and the extensive endnotes help for mroe reasearch - I visited a lot of museums there, armed with this book! It's a thick, interesting read and a great coffeetable book, like Knitting in America.

Marine Rifleman in WW2is a very ambitious title and, as it turns out too ambitious. The book covers the basic training and some deployments of newly enlisted members of the US 4th Marine Division.

It gives no real insight to tactics used or what more experienced Marine units experienced or thought of the new recruits, other than a lamentation at the death of the all volunteer corp.

The book does give VERY good detail on the induction, indoctrination and training of US Marines in WW2 and on their equipment. If you have an interest in how the draft system worked or what made a raw recruit into a `leatherneck' then this is a good book. If you are looking for more though it will leave you disappointed.

I put a lot of the blame for this with the publisher, Osprey, who limits who much space the author has to work with. That having been said, the final blame falls on who green lit the title. Had it been "Training of US Marine" This would be a 5 star from me, but in covering the vast topic of "Marine rifleman" in World War Two this falls far short.

What was it like to be one of the half-million Marines in service from 1939 to 1945? Gordon L. Rottman tells all in a slim, 64-page book packed with vintage photographs and eight pages of color drawings by Howard Gerrard. Rottman orients the reader with a chronology, then writes about conscription and how it affected the Corps. When I was a Marine recruit at MCRD San Diego in June thorugh September 1975, I was told that Marines were all volunteers, that none were drafted. Rottman gave a good account of how the Marine Corps claim of "no draftees" and the US law that ended voluntary enlistments on December 5, 1942 were reconciled: Selective Service Volunteers! The Blue Star program was mentioned. Then Rottman got into the subjects that were my reason for buying his book:
* Training
* Appearance
* Equipment
* Belief and belonging
* Camp Pendleton
* Conditions of service
* On campaign
* The aftermath of battle
* collections, museum,s and reenactments

The color plate section shows the naval service identity disks (dog tags), the Marine's Handbook, C and K rations, the contents of the first aid kit and toilet articles. Rottman condensed the experience of being a World War Two Marine into a short, easy to digest book.

Infantry combat is a team sport, not individual competition--and Rottman begins by taking the reader through basic. Today, a minimum of 16 weeks of combat training is required before committing a new Marine to combat--but in the early scramble to build up the Corps, boot camp was shortened to three weeks. By 1944, basic training in either San Diego, California, or Parris Island, South Carolina, was officially eight weeks. Basic training was (and still is) all about making team players. After basic training, the newly-minted private is then assigned to his new squad and has to train all over again so that the 13 Marines can function as a single organism. At the beginning of the war, peacetime rifle strength was eight Marines, usually all armed with the M1903A1 Springfield rifle. On paper, there was supposed to be an automatic rifle in the squad. The Marine rifle squad was commanded by a corporal and was organized the same as an Army rifle squad. Wartime strength was supposed to be 12 men in both services. By 1944, the Marines had found a better way to organize the squad, one that is still used today. A sergeant commanded three corporal fire team leaders. Each fire team was built around an automatic rifle, which provided the bulk of the fire team's killing power, along with hand and rifle grenades--though officially the M1 Garand semi-automatic rifle was the rifle squad's major weapon system. The rest of the squad was armed with a mix of M1 carbines, M1 rifles, the occassional Thompson submachine gun or Springfield rifle, perhaps the new M3 "grease gun" submachine gun, demolitions, grenades, K-bar jungle knives, bayonets, and sometimes a pistol or two. Battle experience found that a small group could survive and fight better than a large squad, and the platoon leader, squad leader, and fire team leader of 1944 wasn't as over-extended as the 1940 counterparts: the platoon leader directed three squad leaders, each squad leader directed three fire team leaders, and each fire team leader directed three riflemen (okay, and automatic rifleman, and assistant automatic rifleman, and a scout!). This modular organization functioned better in the latter frontal assaults from the sea against Japanese deliberate area ambushes from fortified fighting positions. Under the old organization, a squad would be paralyzed if it took two or three casualties. With the three fire-team organization, as long as the fire teams took no more than one casualty each, they remained effective because the casualties were compartmented. One entire fire team could be lost and the squad could still function. If two fire teams went down, the remaining fire team could and did conduct the squad's mission. There was a heavy price paid for this--the units had to be rebuilt after combat operations.

Two of Rottman's books appear in the bibliography. While Marine Rifleman provides a concise overview, some people will see this book as a starting point. Marine Rifleman provides enough informaiton on its own for most readers.