Oceania Books

Congratulations, Mr Carey, on producing the only boring book on Sydney I have ever read. The stories you relate are, apart from the climbers dying in the Blue Mountains, mainly boring. You do not capture, in my opinion, the essence of Sydney. Your book is essentially about a group of your closest friends, who, frankly, could be living in any city in the world. I am not interested in what your mate thinks of Parramatta bleedin road? It may have had some historical significance in the 19th Century, but its just a road now, which leads through some pretty decrepit suburbs. I expected some really penetrating anecdotes about Sydney and Sydneysiders (I was one of them, having grown up on the North Shore). As for your politics - why oh why oh why do you liberals think that ordinary folk in the street should apologise for atrocities committed against the Aborigines? You are just another one of the `sorry' brigade, which gets a kick out of seeing young white children paint the word `sorry' on their foreheads. Disgusting. Mr Carey (and please stay in New York), there is no such thing as Inherited Guilt. You should never apologise, or force other people to apologise, for something you haven't done. If you want Inherited Guilt then I suggest you go live in North Korea.

I will, however, give you plaudits for reciting the story of Mr Eternity. But Mr Eternity was a quintessentially Australian character, Mr Carey; you are not.

Enjoy the Big Apple!

Any attempt to girdle a city within literature is doomed by the complexity and expanse of the topic. Carey delays this admission until the end, although by then his feelings are clear. Living and writing in New York City, only a deep inland residence could give him greater setting for contrast. His comparison with his current home is limited to the cramped quarters he endures there. Yet this limited contrast imparts the theme and import of this personal summary. Little of this book is about Australia's key city. Instead, the majority of Carey's essays here describe the Harbour, the Blue Mountains, the Pacific Coast, the Bridge and rivers. The characters are a melange of his personal friends and historical figures. There is a mystical episode on the Harbour Bridge and a passing critique of the CBD [Central Business District] and the values of those working there. The theme remains that the City is but one location in a region of contrasts. No other city is placed so uniquely. Perhaps no-one is better suited to attempt this unique task.

Many cities rejoice in their history, but in this, too, Sydney is special. Founded as a convict colony, it grew into a major Pacific port. Survival was a struggle with poor soil, vagaries of rain and wind and the presence of the Aborigine population - issues that urbanisation hides but cannot eliminate. Sensing its importance early, Sydney girted the Harbour with forts, something Carey lightly applauds when old forts become new parks. Carey conveys the sense of struggle, but time has transformed equal starving of convicts and guards to ideals of social equality - so long as that society is white, he reminds us. His "distorted view" imparts his dissenting view on relations with displaced Aborigines, among other topics.

However booksellers classify this work, it's not a travel advisory. Tourists will be unlikely to join the Sydney to Hobart race. Even more unlikely when they read Carey's account of the disaster of 1998. Nor will the casual visitor find themselves in a capsized racing skiff in the teeth of ten metre waves and forty knot winds. If you do visit, be careful hiking in mountains. If your visit occurs in the Southern Hemispheric summer, be extra cautious with matches or campfires. What can happen if you aren't Carey imparts with stunning clarity. Having lost his own house to fire, a telephone dialogue with a friend fighting to save one is a gripping read.

Carey's many awards are well deserved. His descriptive writing skills and characterisation are well demonstrated in this book. It's no matter if these are real people, mixtures of many into one or wholly invented. Their own stories are from real life and deserve attention. Carey snags your attention from the first page and you give it willingly to the rest of the book. An essay string that may be enjoyed by anyone, this book provides entertainment, education and excitement. Try it and see. [stephen a. haines - Ottawa, Canada]

Peter Carey spent 30 days in Sydney in 2000 and we readers are the lucky recipients of his account. He clearly loves Sydney and demonstrates this love in every page of this little volume. His love is contagious. For example, on viewing what he calls "the great Pacific Ocean," he writes: "It is one of a hundred places you will find in Sydney which take your breath away, and I, familiar but disoriented, was in a state of constant amazement that any metropolis could be so blesssed." He also obviously cares deeply for his friends who still live there. About his friend Jack Ledoux he says: "I have lived in more than one house Jack has designed and would be a happy man if I could wake up in one tomorrow morning and live in it all my life. Every time I walk into one of his constructions, it makes me happy." What an extraordinary way to describe a friend!

Mr. Carey sets out to describe this great city in terms of earth, air, fire and water. He does this by having several zany friends of his-- some of them friends of thirty years-- tell their stories. Any one of these characters ought to be found in a novel, at least one of Mr. Carey's. In his hands they become flesh and blood and as interesting as the city they describe. Good stuff jumps out on every page. Mr. Carey admits that he cannot drive over Sydney's famous bridge without having a panic attack, a fact that is particularly significant to me since I suffer from the same problem with high bridges. Then there is the delicious account of the word "Eternity" and the little man responsible for writing the word everywhere or anywhere he felt his God called him to write it. Carey's handling of the "Aborigine problem" is particularly poignant in his discussion of Vicki, who was taken from her parents and raised by a white family.

Carey, now living in New York, did not move to Sydney, the city his mother said was just like Liberace, until he was almost forty-- ". . . even then I carried in my baggage a typical Melbournian distrust of that vulgar crooked convict town." I for one would love to see him write similar books about both Melbourne and New York.

So much good writing-- so many marvelous stories in 248 pages. A great read!

This is a good read for Aussie expats, not least because the author is one of Australia�s more prominent contemporary literary figures, staging a return visit to Sydney from his current home in New York. Aussies living in America will probably be tuned into the way observations of one country are used to shed light on the other, the extra explanations he is obliged to include for either culture, as well was the exercise of reacquainting oneself with one�s place of origin and trying to come to grips with its history and character. On occasion the author�s own brand of cronyism (men relive their exploits or otherwise act out their mid life crises) is a bit irksome, but then he is well aware of such potential gripes and fends them off within the book (�Mate, you�re making a big mistake talking to all these men. You�re ignoring the women��). In all, he spins a good yarn, and the final pages will have you heaving on the open seas at the mouth of the Hawkesbury River.

I've had a fascination with shipwrecks since my grandpa showed me an encyclopedia painting of the Lusitania sinking when I was about 3 years old. I'm also a #1 fan of Clive Cussler and his NUMA adventures.

This book gives a little story about each ship, then goes into the results of what is there now, or was when the author visited each site. There are some fascinating bits and pieces here. His attitude about access to the ships didn't bother me as much as the poor editing and lack of substantial photos. I'd get this buildup to each vessel, but the carrot at the end of the stick was nothing but text. Maybe his publishing budget didn't allow for more photos, but I really think it would've sold better if he added a little more pizzazz to it.

Still, for anyone interested in shipwrecks, I highly recommend this one, despite the flaws.

I have been thinking about what I wanted to say in a review of this book as I finished it up over the past few days. Then I read the review by "Scotty Mon" and he says it all. I agree with him 100%. I got real tired of the attitude that Delgado constantly pushes that only archaeologists should be allowed to dive on these wreck sites (because everyone else is a treasure hunter who steals all the artifacts without studying the history). He echoes the opinions of Dan Lenihan (author of Submerged), founder of the NPS SCRU, and actually credits Lenihan with instilling this attitude in him. I want to read about the history of the wrecks and what they're like on the seabed now; the professional archaeologists do precious little to present that info and observations to the general public in an interesting and accessible manner.

There are very few pictures in this book and nothing that significantly serves to illustrate what Delgado saw when he was diving. Actually, most of the back half of the book is a promo for his Sea Hunters TV show. I guess you have to buy the series on DVD or watch it on TV if you want to see anything insteresting that he describes in his dives.

However, with all of the previous said, I still recommend this book as he presents interesting historical info on each wreck and then gives a brief writeup of his dives and digs. His brevity leaves you wanting so much more though! He does a good job sharing his observations and makes you feel like you are there; and his writing style is well-paced and enjoyable.

This book wouldn't be so disappointing if the title wasn't so midleading. The author simply writes about previously discovered wreck sites and offers mundane accounts of his visits. His enthusiasm and historical perspective are commendable but reeks of a bureacrat trying to justify flying around at taxpayer expense.

The book merely offers the author's assessments of these wreck sites. No major new discoveries. He actually found a 150-year old peanut on one wreck and tries to get the reader excited about it. The title should be " The Follow-Up Visits of a Sea Janitor".

It gets old reading the ongoing proclamation by the author and his bureacratic archaeology brethren that these shipwrecks are sacred gravesites and should only be accessible to his kind. These sites are accident scenes and none of the victims were properly laid to rest.

If you are looking for true adventure try "Shadow Divers" or any Robert Marx book.

Personally, I found this book fascinating and intriguing look into underwater archaeology. Having been on archaeological sites myself this type of book is like candy for the mind. It's like a real life Indiana Jones. Besides, a lot of archaeology is getting excited about something as mundane as a peanut. It allows us to see how people ate, farmed, etc in the past and to draw parallels into how we live now. Also, to rebut the previous commentary about the book sounding like it was written by a bureaucrat spending tax payers dollars let me enlighten you about how this works. 1) It can be very hard to get tax dollars to do archaeology. 2) A lot of work researching in books and archives goes into a site before it is even excavated/dived on. 3) Depending on the type of site determines how much excavation is done. 4) Private funding went into some of the sites mentioned in the book.
Clive Cussler, who wrote the foreword, pays for, and does, a lot of research without ever tapping into the governments piggy bank. Same with how the Vrow Maria was discovered, etc. So, a word to the wise, before you trash something down and harshly critique it understand just what you're talking about. Uninformed commentary just sounds ignorant. Shipwrecks are sacred gravesites, and accident sites in some cases, but they do need to be treated with respect and care. Would one have so callous an opinion about the pyramids in Egypt? Or perhaps an American Civil War battlefield? You tell me.

The story is interesting (almost the same as the movie). However, some of the language was difficult for me to read--when the old sailors were talking. This read was contenting, but nothing spectacular.

Basically, this book is about two shipwrecked kids who grow up together on a deserted island and fall in love without any interference from the outside world. Sounds idyllic, doesn't it?
This is one of a very few books where the reader almost wishes they could trade places with the characters. The book is much better than the movie.

I thought it was fabulous. I am often intreged by "based on the book by..." anywhere in a movie and often make it a personal quest to find the afformentioned book.
I like the movie Blue Lagoon well enough, and went in search of "In the Garden of God" - original title and searched for years. I found it on an on-line library of sorts and read it. I found it facinating. Stacpoole goes into lush detail describing the island and the character of Paddy becomes more endering and his death is truly tragic. But the miracle of the children's survival as well as Dick's father's survival and their seperate quests is truly worth reading.
The book itself is very plain. Softcover, white, title, author and that is about it.
I am in search of an original, and perhaps someday I'll find it.

This edition contains quite a few typos throughout the book. It also feels like eternity has passed before anything really happens (of course I'm not a big fan of any survivor/travel-type books aka Robinson Crusoe or Gulliver's Travels). The story feels sluggish as everyone (a pair of cousins and the superstitious sailor tossed out to sea after a terrible shipwreck) is carefree and no one worries about the obvious dangers. Ideallic...until death finally strikes. Whoot for death! It's the catalyst to start everything in motion. Once the children finally grow up, the story finally begins to become interesting...although it takes 3/4 of the book to get there. Yet, it might be all worth it for that last fourth and the ending. Love the ending...although I'm still unsure of exactly what happened. Ultimately, the book makes you consider love and death and what we know instinctively about both.
All in all worth reading in a week of rainy days with nothing better to do.

This is the 3rd dive travel book I have purchased writen by Lawson Wood. He covers all the information you will need to plan a dive trip to Cozumel, Cancun and the Mayan Riviera. Besides the 160 dive and snorkel sites there is a brief history of the area and lots of travel tips. If you are a diver you will like the dive site discriptions and underwater photography. This is one of the best books of its kind on diving in the Mayan Riviera area.

The dive sites of COZUMEL AND THE YUCATAN, the comprehensive coverage of diving and snorkeling by Lawson Wood is a decent generalist travel guide covering the history, climate, maps, travel tips, basics of diving and snorkeling, brief rating of selected dive sites, nice photos and descriptions of underwater marine environment and animals, ..etc...Four regions are covered: Cancun, Isla Mujeres and Isla Contoy, Cozumel, the Caribbean coast (Cenote dive sites described)in 176 pages. There is some basic travel info(places to eat, stay, and play) however, no reviews are provided to base a decision...lots of phone numbers though.

The book rates dive sites by the following factors: Location, Access, Dive Conditions, Min. Depth, Max. Depth, Average Visibility, Basic description of what you may see at the dive site. There are 55 dive sites rated for Cozumel, 14 for Cancun, 12 for Isla Contoy and Isla Mujeres, and 72 along the Caribbean Coast. Each review is about 120 - 150 words.

Page 3 of this book acknowledges all the organizations used for the info in this book and the photograph equipment used for the underwater pictures...a good source of contacts.

This book is great if you are thinking about traveling and diving for the first time to the Yucatan and want to know what to expect when you get there. Advanced divers looking for more dive site descriptions and dive maps may be disappointed...therefore 4 stars for a GENERAL Travel guide and dive guide together.

This is a good book for someone visiting the Quintanna Roo Coast and Cozumel who is going to use commercial dive operators for most of their diving. For the true adventurer however it is not really adequate. Why? Well say you need to find a reef on your ocean kayak and you are without a dive guide. This book will not really help you find that reef because it does not go into exact reef location detail, it just says like 100 yards off beach X. Well those beaches in Cozumel are long white strips of sand and are prettty much indistinguishable from one another. Also, no information on where to camp on Cozumel and on the Quintanna Roo Coast. It does however have good reef descriptions, general travel info and helpfull advice for tourists.

This book is very nicely arranged and designed. The writing is clear and concise and well thought out. The sections on the marine environments and diver safety were great. Not so great were directions getting to some of the dive locations. The author may have visited most of the dive sites on a dive boat and never attempted to reach the locations by car. We are snokelers and tried unsuccessfully to reach some of described locations on the Mexican Riviera. The map of the Mexican Riviera was not good. The scale was off by an order of magnitude. A few of the roads listed in the book on the map were not actually there. Some of the actual roads were not on the map. Most roads going from Highway 307 toward the shore are hotel private property. We repeatedly got turned around by uniformed personnel at hotel gates and had to give up reaching dive sites. It might be useful in future editions to tell how to get to a location by car. Giving GPS coordinates would be good too. This is a good book for planning a diving trip to the Yucatan area. But not so great once you get there.

great book with excellent coverage of different dive sites all over micronesia. the only problem i have is that it has not been updated since 2000, but that is only a minor thing.

Diving Micronesia was an easy to read guide book that will not go into great detail , I certainly did not base my travel on it , I would definately recomend the lonely planet guide by Tim Rock , it is much more informative

Throughout the world of diving, there are a few Divers who are able to provide their Publishers with excellent material for their Guide Books and Eric Hanauer is one of these.

"Diving Micronesia" measures 10" x 7" and is another guide in the medium size format favoured by Aqua Quest. This is a worthy addition to a first rate series of books - throughout which, these publishers have maintained the highest standards in terms of quality of information and photography.

As with each of these guides, this book is clearly laid out with chapters on the overall subject area (complete with all the relevant information required), an overview of diving in the South Pacific and specific detail with regard to the individual countries visited (Guam, Mariana Islands, Yap, Palau, Chuuk (formerly Truk Lagoon), Pohnpei, Kosrae and the Marshall Islands (including Bikini Atoll)). Chapter 1 begins with a précis of the region's geography and history coupled with details of the present day. This is followed by a map and all that essential information such as credit cards, cuisine, currency, dress, electricity, getting there, entry/exit requirements, mail, telephone, time, post - and anything else the prospective visitor wishes to know.

Chapter 2 is an overview of the Diving in general and includes all the relevant information the diver requires - such as: facilities, water/weather conditions, visibility, flora and fauna and lots more besides.

As one might expect, there then follows a chapter dedicated to each of the aforementioned countries within the catchment area of this book. Being separate countries spread over a large area of the Pacific Ocean, these chapters contain a wealth of information on diving and non-diving topics. The diving details commences with a map of the specific island complex where all the relevant dive sites are clearly numbered and displayed. This is followed by a description of each site with adequate narrative, relevant depth and grade-of-diver information.

With everything lavishly supported by underwater and surface photography of the highest standard, the book then concludes with Appendices containing Emergency Information and what appears to be a very thorough list of local (South Pacific) diving contact details.

With a total of 92 dive sites to set the heart racing, the book also includes 3 dive sites from Bikini Atoll. Clearly the Publishers were leaving the very best to the very last by including the USS Saratoga (the only diveable Aircraft Carrier in the world), HIJMS Nagato and USS Apogon which combine to form three of the world's most important dive sites.

For me, it was nice to find a book where some of the world's most historic sites from the WW2 Pacific theatre of War were placed together - rather than allowing, say, Truk Lagoon (sorry - just can't get used to that new name.), or Bikini Atoll to dominate the book.

Altogether, a well-rounded book with everything supported by some pretty stunning and imaginative photography. For anyone considering a trip to the South Pacific, I do believe this is the only book you will require - and it is one for which I have been waiting for some time...

NM

A thorough explanation of the Micronesian islands and what to expect, both on land and under the water, on each of them. The history is fascinating. Our first visit to Micronesia, so we'll see how true the information the book presents is!

The author does an excellent job of describing and illustrating key milestones in the mapping of the Pacific region. He integrates the history of exploration and of cartography in an effective manner that adds life to the plentiful and abundant maps that illustrate the text. The book is an excellent introduction for the serious collector of antique maps of the Pacific. Its a beautiful book and informative book, however, it could be a difficult read at times for those less interested in maps or history.

"The European mapping of the Pacific was at times a mapping of the European psyche," writes Thomas Suarez.
The mere fact that the Europeans did it, at such cost, was an aspect of a unique psychological outlook. The people who lived in and around the Pacific never bothered.
There were a variety of reasons, some merely technical, for that. For whatever reasons, the indigenes were content with local maps. The drive to know the whole world did not inspire them.
The Europeans had crass motivations as well. After 300 years of effort, there were still a few spots unknown to them in 1800 -- and even as a big a place as Hawaii had been found barely two decades earlier. But in the 19th century the quest for "sandalwood, trepang, seals, whales and furs" exposed every last scrap of land to purchasers of European maps.
"Early Mapping of the Pacific" follows on Suarez's gorgeous "Early Mapping of Southeast Asia" and will have even more interest for Hawaii readers. Hawaii gets more detailed attention than anyplace else, and it is easy to see that Suarez has spent plenty of time here.
He writes that "often the mapping and exploration of the Pacific seems the stuff of novels," and his own late entry into the field was, if not novelistic, distinctly unusual.
A classical violinist, Suarez was giving concerts way off Broadway -- places like Moen island in Chuuk in Micronesia -- when he became interested in the places, the people, the stories and the maps.
For a generation, he's been an authority and consultant on old maps.
Even without the detailed text, it is easy and curious to follow the progress -- sometimes regress -- of European knowledge of the Pacific over time.
When the Pacific was completely unknown to Europe, the best maps Europe had already showed close correspondence with the shapes and locations of the Caribbean and Africa, though the Caribbean had been unknown 20 years earlier.
Often -- not always, by any means -- the Europeans in their restless inquisition acquired accurate maps almost overnight. Even in fairly early maps, some parts of the Pacific begin to look quite familiar, though others remain seriously confused. It took a long time, for example, to learn that Australia and New Guinea are not connected.
Even by the time of James Cook, a buyer of maps in Amsterdam or London had to choose between very different opinions about what lay in the Pacific.
One topic that Suarez devotes considerable attention to is whether the Spaniards found Hawaii before Cook did in 1779.
There are early maps that show islands about where Hawaii is.
Suarez is not persuaded that they represent anything more than the other fugitive islands that cartographers in Europe were led and misled to draw on maps even into the 19th century.
There is an even stronger argument against Spanish discovery.
The maps that show "Hawaii" show other islands to the east and to the west that we know do not exist, and the accuracy of these maps for the west coast of America is poor also.
If "Hawaii" on those maps is genuine, it is the only part that is.

The review of this volume suggests that it is a worthy work of some substance (as do comments elsewhere). But only one star? Is this an error?

This is a vast topic and the author has taken on a huge job. He has written a truly excellent text that is technically correct, yet very readable. He has also managed to do somethig very difficult - integrate the text successfully with maps, most of which are illustrated beautifully. So in one work, we have the scholarly interpretation of the history and its integration with the cultural artifacts of such exploration.- the maps. I think one of the chief attributes is that his book has opened so many doors to this subject that it will reman a standard for a very ong time. It is also a beautiful production (although the subtitle sounds like it was written by a desperate English major) and is easily in the fine tradition of Suarez' other books.

I have been very fortunate. I have had the oportunity to visit Hawai'i three times: The Big Island once, and Maui twice. I used a prevoius edition of this Frommer's Guide for a lot of my planning.

I like the listings of inexpensive hotels, B&B's, restaurants and activities in the book. Inexpensive does not mean poor quality. I have never been disappointed when following the advice in the Guide. I also enjoy the recommendations and maps included.

I find the Frommer's Guides to be very helpful, and have used other Frommer's Guides for trip planning: The Canadian Rockies, New Mexico, Yellowstone National Park, Florida for $ a Day, and San Francisco to name a few. They are a good starting point for planning a vacation.

Overall a pretty good guide to the islands. However, I did have a few complaints:
Some of the places off the beaten path were not well described in terms of directions (and if not for helpful locals, I never would have reached them)
Restaurant data was often out of date (restaurant closed or completely redone), and poorer restaurants were sometimes recommended while the better ones were left off.
I was able to find a lot of better deals (or found out after the fact about better deals available) than listed in the book.
If you know nothing about Hawaii, it's a good bood to have. I will look for a different guide for my next trip.

If you buy this guide, don't bother buying Frommer's Hawaii 2006. Most of it is word for word.

On my trips to the Islands, I've found this book to be an excellent source of hotel, B&B, and restaurant recommendations. It is not the best overall guide, but it IS the best source of info for the above items. I've found that by taking this book along with the Lonely Planet (which is the best overall guide but is weak on lodging & restaurants) I have all the info I need to plan & enjoy my vacations to Hawaii.

I've used this book for travel to Maui, Kauai, and the Big Island, and have never found any of the reviews to be far off base. Highly recommended!

This book may be good for the ones who want to hike in Northern South Wales. Unfortunately Amazon did not have the "search inside" tool, so I could not check if the Blue Mountains were included. They were not, and I had to return the book.

This book is great for short one or two day hikes it is not what I was actually looking for. It had really good information and descriptions of hikes although I was looking for much longer hikes of weeks not days. The title of the book should mention that they are short one and two day hikes.

Hiking Tropical Australia: Queensland And Northern New South Wales is a comprehensive, "traveler friendly" walking guide to Australia's eastern tropical and subtropical regions. Covering an area of approximately 1600 miles beginning around Grafton (in northern New South Wales) and reaching down into the lower portion of wild, rugged Cape York Peninsula (in farm north Queensland), Hiking Tropical Australia coverage extends inland as well to include national parks such as Girraween and Carnarvon that lie in the transition zone between tropical and outback landscapes. Enhanced with more than 100 maps and pictures, Hiking Tropical Australia divides topical Australia into six zones defined by ecology and topography: the eastern and western scenic rims; sand, sea, and islands; escarpment and range; the granite belt; and far north Queensland, above the Tropic of Capricorn. Travelers will find precise directions for reaching all the parks and trails; difficulty ratings and notes about the special attractions of each hike; as well as vivid descriptions of what will be encountered along the way. Hiking Tropical Australia is a unique and invaluable guide for the vacationing visitor, and has a wealth of information helpful to native Australian as well.

I used the book this summer while traveling in the northern part of Queensland. I found it to be an ideal companion to the more general guides (Lonely Planet, Fodor's, etc.). The book helped my husband and me to figure out the best places to hike, when we had fairly limited time and many things we wanted to do. It provides the perfect amount of information in a useful format; for each hike the author lists trail distance, hiking time, level of difficulty, and main attractions, and then gives a helpful description of what hikers will see. The author also provides brief descriptions of parks and state forests. I like that the book describes hikes of varied lengths and difficulty. I highly recommend this book to people of any age or fitness who want to hike in the northeastern part of Australia.

The basic concept of this book of focusing less on the key people and events of history and more on the environmental, social and cultural impacts is not new and could have produced an interesting and insightful analysis of a country that is still a mystery to most Westerners. However, Totman fails to achieve this. His writing style can be tedious and he seems intent in showing off his impressive vocabulary - he certainly must get the prize for the most use of the word "adumbrate" in a book.

Ironically, therein lies the problem. He sketches over some complex issues,cultural themes and whole periods of history that without an existing deep knowledge of Japanese history and society leaves this reader, at least, more confused than enlightened. His approach of laying a lot of emphasis on the geographic and environmental influences, again, could have been very interesting but it finally degenerates into a rant about the war in Iraq and how destructive and corrupt the Industrialized world is. Rather than a diatribe against the Bush administration, it would have been useful to see an analysis of the factors that have caused the Japanese economy to stagnate compared to Europe and particularly the U.S.

In the end this book really does not give either a helpful overview of the history of Japan nor any insight into its future.

Totman tries ever-so-hard to liberate his history from traditionalist binaries such as East vs. West and industrial vs. pre-industrial. He does this by examining history from an ecological perspective, examining the interaction between man and the environment. At first, this approach seems to work remarkably well. It is possible, it seems, to deduce pre-historic settlement patterns from the environmental record alone.

Yet, the novelty of his approach begins to break down when he tries to fit all of Japanese history into four distinct stages defined by the ability of the society to extract and process resources (e.g. crops, minerals, forests, etc.). This is just old-style development theory dressed in a new suit. Also, Totman conveniently abandons the ecological model when examining such items as culture, even though he vainly tells the reader that he has not forgotten his approach! When the author has to remind the reader that he hasn't strayed from his theme, it's a sure sign that he has!

The result of all this is a highly fragmented account that is difficult to read without prior knowledge of Japanese history. If I were a professor in this field, it would be an agonizing decision to go back to Sansom's venerable 1960's volume instead of turning to the current scholarship used in Totman. And yet, Totman's book is so difficult to digest that it would probably be worth it.

I had the good fortune to use (the first edition of) Conrad Totman's "History of Japan" in a series of introductory Japanese history courses for which I also read large parts of the two works with which it is often compared by other reviewers: George Sansom's three-volume history and the encyclopedic Cambridge history. This let me compare all three works and identify the strengths that each has relative to the others. Although I read the first edition, few major changes seem to have been made in the second edition, the main one being an expansion of the epilogue to discuss pressures associated with the war on terror and invasion of Iraq.

As a one-volume work, Totman's history can't hope to include as much detail as the other two multi-volume histories. However, it nevertheless manages to present a comprehensive and very accessible history of Japan from prehistoric times to the twenty-first century. Unlike the Cambridge history, it is actually affordable, and unlike Sansom's work it includes events following the Meiji Restoration. Totman also spends considerably more time exploring Japanese society and economy than does Sansom, who focuses mainly on political, military and high-cultural affairs.

Totman's main conceit is taking an 'ecological' approach to Japanese history that governs the book's structure even if it doesn't dominate the narrative as a whole. He divides Japanese history into four rough and somewhat overlapping periods, based on the dominant means of production: pre-agriculture, dispersed agriculture, intensive agriculture, and industrial. Each of these periods, he argues, exhibited an early high-growth phase when the spread of new techniques and technologies led to rapid increases in production and population, followed by longer periods of stasis. As a result of this approach, for instance, Totman considers the Meiji Restoration a less crucial transition than the process of industrialization that followed it later in the nineteenth century.

Totman's interpretation is plausible, and I appreciated how he uses it to provide structure to his account, without forcing all aspects of Japanese history to fit into some overarching model. His writing was also quite accessible, and often a pleasure to read. The supplemental tables, glossary, index, annotated bibliography and limited notes were also helpful. Sansom and the Cambridge history may make more complete references, but of the three I found Totman's "History of Japan" the most interesting, accessible and enjoyable to read.

Conrad Totman's A History Of Japan conceptualizes four major "ages" grounded in the material resources that sustained Japanese society: the age of foragers, dispersed agriculturalists, intensive agriculture, and industrialism. Totman beings with Stone Age society in Japan, and then moves through developments in agriculture, state-building, the blossoming of classical arts and letters, socioeconomic growth and change, domestic and diplomatic politics, social issues of class, gender and ethnicity, cultural production and the environmental effects of agricultural activity. A History Of Japan provides detailed coverage of the twentieth century when Japan grew into a much larger society and its role on the international science became militarily, economically, and culturally influential. A History Of Japan is a highly recommended, informative, scholarly, comprehensive, and "reader friendly" introduction and historical survey that will be much appreciated by students of Japanese history and culture, and has a wealth of material for the non-specialist general reader seeking to understand the Japan of antiquity as well as a contemporary and influential society.

Highly recommend this book, especially cultural historians. It is amazing to read the blend of Island and British culture.

As a graduate student in history, I was intrigued by Sahlins subject. However, Sahlins does his best to hide his subject from any reader not in "the club" -- i.e. anyone who does not speak the jargon of a structuralist (or post-structuralist) anthropologist. Sahlins is a very inaccessible (and is thus, by most rules of writing, a BAD) writer, whose elitist attitude negates any interest I may have had in his subject matter.

Marshall Sahlins, a renowned expert in Polynesian archaeology, has produced an excellent, well-written book that focuses on synchrony and diachrony in archaeology, as reflected in the early encounters between Captain Cook and the early Polynesians. This book is essential reading for scholars interested in the concepts of cyclical and linear time. The text also demonstrates that the early Polynesians, like many other non-western societies, in fact had a dynamic, recursive history before European contact; a history not based on written records but rather on a rich array of oral traditions. Essentially, this book can be used as an important frame of reference for scholars of other early oceanic societies, for example pre-Columbian societies in the Caribbean, particularly with respect to issues of European contact and indigenous time reckoning and time conception.

This book is thoroughly researched, and intelligent. It is simultaneously an account of the history of Hawai'i's integration into the world economy, a reminder of the complexity of social change in colonial contexts, and a rekindling of the beauty of structuralism