Oceania Books

"Turtle Island" is a excellent little book that not only provides a brief history of Ascension Island, but also wonderfully portrays the author's experiences of life on that remote spot about which few know or care. For sometime, I have been fascinated with this place and "Turtle Island" gave me a window on Ascension that is valuable, as realistically I will probably never get around to visiting the island.

Filled with interesting anecdotes about life on Ascension and the work of visiting biologists studying the migration habits of the Green Turtle, "Turtle Island" is a quick, entertaining, and informative read. The thoughtful author has also compiled a "webography" to assist those readers who desire more information about Ascension Island via the Internet.

This book is simply a must read for all Australians and anyone interested in the colonial experience, in this case by white British 'official' settlers who marginalised the prior inhabitants of Kangaroo Island, and who were also white (unoffical European settlers and sealers) its not a race thing so much, as much as it became a race thing, its just that the marginalised were not 'recognised' socially, and no one would marry them and all their hard work was lost, appropriated by those with the right connections.

The story is compelling.

I can't help but want to show this book to everybody lately. Beautifully illustrated and edited, it is very holistic in every part of the topic that I could imagine; ancient navigation techniques, canoe construction, people's role in introducing the Polynesian pig to islands, maps galore, etc.

This book will increase your awareness of the loosely tied nation/interocean continent known as Polynesia, Melanesia and Micronesia. Your mind will be boggled and awe inspired at the story of the exploration of the farthest, most remote reaches of the Pacific Ocean. The discovery and settlement of Hawaii, Tahiti, the Marquesas Islands and all points in between rivals man's greatest and bravest achievements in Space.

A must have.

This review is of the 2006 David Bateman publication which I purchased in New Zealand.

This collection of essays covers a vast topic in remarkable detail. Many of the authors explore their topics at a personal level, and almost all of the writing is engaging. It's not the easiest read, but it's also not easy to put it down and go to sleep. Besides, it's a beautiful book.

This book really shocked me in a positive sense. It is en excellent and comprehensive review on the origin, geology and biogeography or the tropical Pacific islands and archipelagos. It covers zone by zone thoroughly and directly resulting in a great compilation of updated information, including orography, soils, area of the islands/archipelagos, geographic position, rock types, levels of disturbance or preservation, etcetera.

Being the vegetation the main topic, the book presents the general and particular trends of evolution, biogeography and composition of plant communities, as well as taxonomic affinities, changes with altitudinal gradients, dominant and most common species per community, influences of the regional weather patterns like typhoons, El Niño phenomenon, and others. It is a great and elegant explanation of why, when and how the varied islands of the tropical Pacific have gotten their vegetation! Please do not expect a simple list of species present in the area.

I really have minor blames, being one the lack of better, bigger and more specific photographs of the diferent islands, plant communities, and species. In the future, a file of great photographs should be added to increase the excellence of the book.

Finally, reading it has left me with a better understanding of the fantastic evolution of the old Panthalassia until becoming the modern Pacific ocean (with its complex basins and seamounts, volcanos, island chains, frightening sea bottoms and trenches) as a result of the impressive breaking and drifting of all components of Gondwanaland!

An eclectic and fascinating collection of critical essays, memoirs, poetry and artwork addressing this forgotten war.

This book is nicely detailed and will be a welcome companion on my trip to Victoria.

After almost a century of modern-style research, the world is not exactly short of ethnographies. You can find works on everybody from Indiana town dwellers to Sri Lankan fishermen. Papua New Guinea, as an area where a wide variety of cultures, some with Stone Age technologies, endured well into the 20th century, attracted the attention of anthropologists right from the start. There are a very large number of books on the country, starting with Malinowskiýs seminal works on the Trobriand Islands during and after WW I. Most, but not all, of them concentrated on investigations of what are often referred to as ýtraditional culturesý, if not ýprimitiveý. Anthropologists, not unlike Western tourists, have often been lured by the ýexoticý parts of the world where cultures extremely different from their own could be found. Bateson, Burridge, Glasse, Heider, Hogbin, Mead, Pospisil, Rappaport, Reay, Schieffelin, and Wagner to name a few, gravitated to Papua New Guinea, drawn perhaps by the chance to study people whose cultures were ýuntouchedý by the West. ýUntouchedý is no doubt a relative word. A few others, especially Lawrence and Worsley, delved into the cargo cults, an aspect of Melanesian religion that sprang up in the wake of colonial pressures on traditional beliefs. Modern Papua New Guinea, with its Christianity, bureaucracy, development projects, education, corruption, urban crime, and population explosion, has not received so much attention. Until now. Michael French Smithýs VILLAGE ON THE EDGE is a delightful new ethnography based on work in the same village in the mid-1970s and then in the late ý90s. Based on the idea of observing change, because Kragur village, on Kairiru island, off the north coast of the country, has been changing rapidly for many decades, Smith succeeds brilliantly. To my taste, he strikes just the right note between popular writing and professional investigation. In a clear, jargon-less style, he covers many areas usually found in ethnographies, such as village structure, family structure, the economic and political system, and religious beliefs, but focusses on how all these things have changed. It is a down-to-earth, non-exotic picture of present dilemmas for the Kragur villagers who still, after over twenty years of independence, remain poised between a sharing, cooperative society based on personal ties and the money-based, more individualistic one introduced as a correct model by the West and emulated by educated, town-dwelling locals. Smith puts himself into the picture, admits to his predilections and difficulties. Refreshingly, he does not hide behind some false ýobjectivityý, but shows how he accepted certain privileges (and dealt with some problems) that came with being a ýwhitemaný. This honesty, coupled with a sense of humor and nice introduction of the flavor of Pidgin English or Tok Pisin, a national language in the country, made the book all the more appealing.

Melanesian societies often believed that knowledgeý-of magic or ritualý-held the key to success in any endeavor, would be the best guarantee of prosperity. Those who had the best knowledge grew the best crops, caught the most fish, or had the most successful trading relationships. But, if many people in the village had that knowledge, then the whole village would be prosperous and successful. Thus, Kragur villagers, like most Melanesians, saw Western education as the way to go if they wanted to raise their standard of living, to obtain money and an easier life. Get Western education, prosper like the Westerners. In a way, Smith points out in the heart of the book, they have been proven right, but the results challenge the whole belief system that underlay their society. For them, if individuals prosper, but the village does not, the new knowledge has failed to produce the desired result. But as time goes by, as more individuals prosper, will not the old ideals completely fade, will not the old cooperative society vanish ? The village is on the edge.

I urge everyone interested in knowing what Papua New Guinea is like today to read this book. It should be on every reading list dealing with the modern Pacific, modern Melanesia, or ýdilemmas of developmentý. If you are trying to attract students to the field of anthropology or to draw their attention to the process of writing ethnographies, you can hardly go wrong with VILLAGE ON THE EDGE.

This is another book everybody ought to have in their library. Why?

(1) The Polynesian double-canoe was the great voyaging craft of the human race. Not that other boats were not great too, but these people had so little -- little land, only a few precious trees, no metals, no compass -- and yet in a remarkably short period of time they populated a territory of Earth that would astound you. With a stellar navigation system stored in their brains (not on charts or in complicated sextants or chronometers) they found their way across a vast ocean. The double-canoe was the least boat (the least amount of materials, the least environmental impact for a given need for reliable sailcraft) that could be made to do the most work in the harshest of conditions -- just for those reasons the boats and their crews deserve recognition.

(2) The book chronicles the several voyages of a reconstructed canoe in order to hypothesize about the ways in which the ancient crews used information about seasonal variations in winds and currents to make destinations that, during some parts of the year, would not have been accessible given the heading angles these boats could sail (about as good as a well-designed European square-rigger, though other Polynsesian outrigger canoes -- proas -- gradually developed after the great voyaging period and would eventually sail closer to the wind and astound the early European explorers with their sailing qualities). These voyages were adventures of thinking, training, and sailing a boat of unknown qualities and using a native type of non-instrument navigation -- those adventures are now a testament to the accomplishments of the native people of Oceania. (In a goofy kind of way, you can also remember such accomplishments when you are feeling a bit down on the human race).

I hope those are good enough reasons to buy this book. There are others, but I'm tired, and I want you to write a review about the ones I have not covered.

Flaws? Who has none? The author rightly desires to document the accomplishments of the Polynesian Voyaging Society, but some cultural/racial tensions arose during this long experiment, which is understandable given the state of things in territories whose historical development was altered by colonization and colonial administration. It was no doubt a difficult thing that some of the first impetus and funding for the adventure came from the 'White'-American "establishment" so to speak. But it would be fair to learn more about the total story of this cultural revival project, both the accomplishments and the tensions. [Note 1/8/08: Finney's later book, "Sailing in the Wake of the Ancestors," which I just received, addresses this issue] --wt

This book has been so valuable to me when planning outings in the greater Wellington region. I take it along with me on walks too.
It is very well organised with clear information about what to expect on each walk, as well as interesting history and nature insights. Great maps too, which I find clearer than the "official" ones sometimes available.
Good variety of tracks from all around the region, including the central city.
This is good for visitors to the city as well as locals.

Wandihnu and the Old Dugong is a softcover children's picturebook about a young Australian girl who has lived her whole life in the city of Sydney, and now spends her first summer visiting her Aka (grandmother) on Badu Island, a place with a different customs and a traditional language called Kala Lagaw Ya. When Aka falls sick, she needs oil from the dugong (a local marine animal) as medicine, but the dugong doesn't understand English - only carefully repeated phrases in Kala Lagaw Ya will draw its attention. The girl learns to repeat the phrases that her grandmother teaches her and befriends the dugong, who gives its medicinal oil as a gift. Light, soft, watercolor-style illustrations enhance this simple yet heartwarming tale about learning to cherish one's linguistic and cultural roots through ties with family and new friends.