Category: Pacific

World War II and Environment in the Southern Pacific

Posted on by stephchun


Ambitious in its scope and scale, Natives and Exotics: World War II and Environment in the Southern Pacific, by Judith A. Bennett, ranges over rear bases and operational fronts from Bora Bora to New Guinea, providing a lucid analysis of resource exploitation, entangled wartime politics, and human perceptions of the vast Oceanic environment. Although the war’s physical impact proved significant and oftentimes enduring, it shows that the tropical environment offered its own challenges: Unfamiliar tides left landing craft stranded; unseen microbes carrying endemic diseases disabled thousands of troops. Weather, terrain, plants, animals—all played an active role as enemy or ally.

July 2009 / ISBN 978-0-8248-3350-3 / $30.00 (PAPER)

The Best of the Best: Vanished Islands and Hidden Continents

Posted on by stephchun


Vanished Islands and Hidden Continents of the Pacific by Patrick D. Nunn, was featured in “The Best of the Best from the University Presses: Books You Should Know About” program, held at the 2009 American Library Association Annual Conference this month. “Best of the Best” titles are chosen by a panel of public and secondary school librarians as having “exceptional editorial content and subject matter” and are considered “essential to most library collections.”

Gossip and the Everyday Production of Politics

Posted on by stephchun


Although gossip is disapproved of across the world’s societies, it is a prominent feature of sociality, whose role in the construction of society and culture cannot be overestimated. In particular, gossip is central to the enactment of politics: through it people transform difference into inequality and enact or challenge power structures. Based on author Niko Besnier’s intimate ethnographic knowledge of Nukulaelae Atoll, Tuvalu, Gossip and the Everyday Production of Politics uses an analysis of gossip as political action to develop a holistic understanding of a number of disparate themes, including conflict, power, agency, morality, emotion, locality, belief, and gender. It brings together two methodological traditions—the microscopic analysis of unelicited interaction and the macroscopic interpretation of social practice—that are rarely wedded successfully.

July 2009 / ISBN 978-0-8248-3338-1 / $49.00 (CLOTH)

Cultural Internationalism and Race Politics in the Women’s Pan-Pacific

Posted on by stephchun

Since its inception in 1928, the Pan-Pacific Women’s Association (PPWA) has witnessed and contributed to enormous changes in world and Pacific history. Operating out of Honolulu, this women’s network established a series of conferences that promoted social reform and an internationalist outlook through cultural exchange. For the many women attracted to the project—from China, Japan, the Pacific Islands, and the major settler colonies of the region—the association’s vision was enormously attractive, despite the fact that as individuals and national representatives they remained deeply divided by colonial histories. Glamour in the Pacific: Cultural Internationalism and Race Politics in the Women’s Pan-Pacific, by Fiona Paisley, tells this multifaceted story by bringing together critical scholarship from across a wide range of fields, including cultural history, international relations and globalization, gender and empire, postcolonial studies, population and world health studies, world history, and transnational history.

“This book places at center stage an organization that embodies many of the crises of colonial modernity that scholars have been grappling with and refracts it through a set of actors and geographical locations that deserve to be better understood and taught widely. Paisley lays out her story in accessible yet analytically sophisticated ways that in turn make manifest the complex unfolding of cultural politics in the Pan-Pacific. The scholarship is extraordinarily impressive and represents the best kind of transnational research there is.” —Antoinette Burton, Bastian Professor of Transnational and Global Studies, University of Illinois

Perspectives on the Global Past
July 2009 / ISBN 978-0-8248-3342-8 / $55.00 (CLOTH)

Eleanor Nordyke at Barnes & Noble, June 28

Posted on by stephchun


Eleanor Nordyke, author and publisher of Pacific Images: Views from Captain Cook’s Third Voyage, Second Edition, will appear at Barnes & Noble, Kahala Mall, on Sunday, June 28, 1:00–2:00 p.m., to sign the newly released second edition of her acclaimed work. She will show a DVD on the topic and display large reproductions of some of the engravings in the book. Pacific Images is distributed by University of Hawai‘i Press.

Ms. Nordyke and Pacific Images were recently featured in the Honolulu Advertiser: http://www.honoluluadvertiser.com/article/20090531/LIFE/905310326.

Samoan Language Coursebook

Posted on by stephchun

This revised edition of Gagana Samoa, by Galumalemana Afeleti Hunkin, is an important modern Samoan language resource. Designed for both classroom and personal use, it features a methodical approach suitable for all ages; an emphasis on patterns of speech and communication through practice and examples; 10 practical dialogues covering everyday social situations; an introduction to the wider culture of fa‘asamoa through photographs; more than 150 exercises to reinforce comprehension; a glossary of all Samoan words used in the coursebook; oral skills supplemented by an optional CD.

June 2009 / ISBN 978-0-8248-3131-8 / $26.00 (PAPER)

Traditional Micronesian Societies

Posted on by stephchun

Traditional Micronesian Societies: Adaptation, Integration, and Political Organization, by Glenn Petersen, explores the extraordinary successes of the ancient voyaging peoples who first settled the Central Pacific islands some two thousand years ago. They and their descendants devised social and cultural adaptations that have enabled them to survive—and thrive—under the most demanding environmental conditions. The dispersed matrilineal clans so typical of Micronesian societies ensure that every individual, every local family and lineage, and every community maintain close relations with the peoples of many other islands. When hurricanes and droughts or political struggles force a group to move, they are sure of being taken in by kin residing elsewhere. Out of this common theme, shared patterns of land tenure, political rule, philosophy, and even personal character have flowed.

June 2009 / ISBN 978-0-8248-3248-3 / $42.00 (CLOTH)

Movement, Gender, and Cook Islands Globalization

Posted on by stephchun

Dancing from the Heart: Movement, Gender, and Cook Islands Globalization, by Kalissa Alexeyeff, is the first study of gender, globalization, and expressive culture in the Cook Islands. It demonstrates how dance in particular plays a key role in articulating the overlapping local, regional, and transnational agendas of Cook Islanders. Alexeyeff reconfigures conventional views of globalization’s impact on indigenous communities, moving beyond diagnoses of cultural erosion and contamination to a grounded exploration of creative agency and vital cultural production.

“Dancing from the Heart is written from the heart. This book is a wonderful evocation of contemporary Polynesian life, joy, and loss. Yet it is also analytically adventurous. Cook Island dance becomes a lens through which questions of gender, performance, embodiment, and globalization come into focus in novel ways. This is surely one of the finest of recent Pacific ethnographies.” —Nicholas Thomas, Univeristy of Cambridge

March 2009 / ISBN 978-0-8248-3244-5 / $55.00 (CLOTH)

The Public vs. Private School Debate in Hawai`i

Posted on by stephchun

Going Against the Grain: When Professionals in Hawai‘i Choose Public Schools Instead of Private Schools is about passion, advocacy, and the willingness of parents to “go against the grain.” It’s about Hawai‘i professionals choosing public education for their children in a state that adheres to a commonly held belief that “public schools are failing and private schools are succeeding.” University of Hawai‘i education professor Ann Bayer interviewed fifty-one parents, including five who chose private schools. Physicians, professors, attorneys, military officers, teachers, legislators, business executives and entrepreneurs, bankers, and administrators of both genders and from a wide range of ethnic backgrounds were among those interviewed.

Bayer begins by asking parents why they chose to send their children to public schools. She also asks them to describe the reaction of families, friends, and colleagues to their decision and their children’s school experiences—both positive and negative. From these conversations the concept of what constitutes a “good public school” emerges as well as the opportunities provided by such schools. Several parents remark that their children have gone on to attend the same colleges and universities as private school graduates. Other chapters examine more closely the prevalent belief in the superiority of Hawai‘i’s private schools and its impact on students, parents, and teachers. Bayer argues that it is important to understand this belief system and how both newcomers and longtime residents are exposed to it given its influence on parental decisions about schooling. Finally, she returns to interviews with parents for suggestions on how to improve public education in Hawai‘i and to address the question “Why should we care about the public school system?” Responses spark frank discussions on the broader implications for the civic and economic health of a community fragmented by two-tiered schooling.

March 2009 / ISBN 978-0-8248-3339-8 / $26.00 (PAPER)

Ethnobotany of Pohnpei

Posted on by stephchun

Ethnobotany of Pohnpei: Plants, People, and Island Culture, compiled and edited by Michael J. Balick and others, examines the relationship between plants, people, and traditional culture on Pohnpei, one of the four island members of the Federated States of Micronesia. Traditional culture is still very strong on Pohnpei and is biodiversity-dependent, relying on both its pristine habitats and managed landscapes; native and introduced plants and animals; and extraordinary marine life. This book is the result of a decade of research by a team of local people and international specialists carried out under the direction of the Mwoalen Wahu Ileilehn Pohnpei (Pohnpei Council of Traditional Leaders). It discusses the uses of the native and introduced plant species that have sustained human life on the island and its outlying atolls for generations, including Piper methysticum (locally known as sakau and recognized throughout the Pacific as kava), which is essential in defining cultural identity for Pohnpeians.

The work also focuses on ethnomedicine, the traditional medical system used to address health conditions, and its associated beliefs. 387 color illus.

Published in association with The New York Botanical Garden
February 2009 / ISBN 978-0-8248-3293-3 / $28.00 (PAPER)

New Edition of Oceania Map Now Available

Posted on by stephchun

Completely revised and updated with enhanced readability, James A. Bier’s Reference Map of Oceania, Second Edition, is the most comprehensive Pacific map in existence. Its main map and 52 inset maps of all major parts of the region provide a wealth of information in one source. Principal cities, towns, and villages are shown along with roads, topography, and population figures where available. The main map’s Mercator projection is useful for planning routes. Time zones for the Pacific and individual countries are also included. It is the only map that clearly focuses on the political units of Micronesia, Polynesia, and Melanesia, using as its boundaries the 200-mile Extended Economic Zone. With more than 3,400 place names, Oceania will be an invaluable reference for everyone interested in or living in the Pacific islands, including teachers, students, historians, anthropologists, businesses, and travelers.

“Making sense of as complex an area as Oceania challenges the best of cartographers. Bier and the University of Hawaii Press have risen to that challenge producing a manageable double-sided sheet full of well laid-out information.” —Special Libraries Association Bulletin

February 2009 / ISBN 978-0-8248-3108-0 / $9.95, color

MENU