Gambling in Papua New Guinea, despite being completely absent prior to the Colonial era, has come to supersede storytelling as the region’s main nighttime activity. Money Games is an ethnographic monograph which reveals the contemporary importance of gambling in urban Papua New Guinea. Rich ethnographic detail is coupled with cross-cultural comparison which span the globe. This anthropological study of everyday economics in Melanesia thereby intersects with theories of money, value, play, informal economy, social change and leadership.

This collection of essays represents a cross-cultural examination of the transformation of indigenous marriage patterns among South Pacific peoples in response to modernising forces such as colonial governments, urbanisation, the establishment of a cash economy, compulsory education and the changing roles of women. The essays explore societies in Micronesia, Melanesia and Polynesia. The field-work ranges from the study of bride-wealth inflation in the highlands of Papau, New Guinea - where contact with the Western world is quite recent - to marrying for resident visas in urban Fiji.

Includes lists of Ph.D's awarded, 1954-