Du site de l'éd.: "The history of the Solomon Islands is in itself an intriguing story, and Dr. Bennett tells it more than well. The depth and breadth of the work is impressive in at least two respects. First, it covers events in the Solomons from initial European contact in the middle-1500s to the country's emergence as an independent and sovereign state in 1978. Second, all facets of colonial history are covered; to name only a few: the early contact period, the whaling trade, the development of plantations, the nature of British colonial rule, and missionization. Considering the scope of this volume, it represents a definitive history of the Solomon Islands, and it will remain so for many years to come."

An Otago Storeman in Solomon Islands reaches from inland South Island of New Zealand across to the Solomon Islands during the 1880s. William Crossan’s Otago experience as a versatile storeman with a solid work ethic helped him survive on the Melanesian frontier where he encountered conflicting clans, cannibalism, cheating traders, and co-operative entrepreneurial big men. His diary provides many glimpses into Makiran society as it encountered new ideas, new employment, and western technology. It is a welcome addition to the sparse record of these cryptic copra traders seeking fortunes on the cusp of indigenous tradition and incoming colonialism.

Ten essays fill in some gaps in the study of plantations by exploring the experience of the workers themselves, focusing on their reaction and adaptation to their situation, which ranged from acquiescence to rebellion.

"An account of the 1998-2003 crisis, a critical review of the major interpretations and an investigation of the underlying causes ... [and] analyses the post-coup period up to the arrival of RAMSI in July 2003"--Introd.

The threat of climate displacement looms large over a growing number of countries. Based on the more than six years of work by Displacement Solutions in ten climate-affected countries, academic work on displacement and climate adaptation, and the country-level efforts of civil society groups in several frontline countries, this report explores the key contention that land will be at the core of any major strategy aimed at preventing and resolving climate displacement. This innovative and timely volume coordinated and edited by the Founder of Displacement Solutions, Scott Leckie, examines a range of legal, policy and practical issues relating to the role of land in actively addressing the displacement consequences of climate change. It reveals the inevitable truth that climate displacement is already underway and being tackled in countries such as Bangladesh, Kiribati, Papua New Guinea, Solomon Islands, Tuvalu and the United States, and proposes a series of possible land solution tools that can be employed to protect the rights of people and communities everywhere should they be forced to flee the places they call home.

"Pacific Forest" explores the use of the forest of the Solomon Islands from the pre-historic period up to the end of 1997, when much of the indigenous commercial forest had been logged. It is the first study of the history of the forest in any Pacific Island; the first analysis of the indigenous and British colonial perceptions of the Melanesian forest; and the first critical analysis for this region, not only of colonial forest policies but of later policies and practices which made the governments of independence exploiters of their own people. "Pacific Forest" addresses a range of evidence drawn from several disciplines, and is a major contribution to environmental history.

The nations of the Pacific Basin - in East and Southeast Asia, Australasia, the Pacific islands and the Americas - make up the world's largest economic zone, and its most culturally diverse region. In recent years its Asian 'Tiger Economies' have suffered economic collapse and unfinished business from the Cold War has produced continuing conflict and instability. The new edition of this pioneering book traces the postwar inter-relationships of all the rim and island nations. It gives a unique impression of the make-up of the region, and the tensions within it. The book integrates a wide range of information from books and articles; from published and unpublished sources, including recently opened Russian and American archives; and from the first-hand experiences of participants, including those of the author, in Pacific Basin affairs. Vigorously written and strongly argued, no other account brings together all the threads of the development of international relations in this complex and fascinating region.

This book aims to reflect on the experiential side of writing political lives in the Pacific region. The collection touches on aspects of the life writing art that are particularly pertinent to political figures: public perception and ideology; identifying important political successes and policy initiatives; grappling with issues like corruption and age-old political science questions about leadership and ‘dirty hands’. These are general themes but they take on a particular significance in the Pacific context and so the contributions explore these themes in relation to patterns of colonisation and the memory of independence; issues elliptically captured by terms like ‘culture’ and ‘tradition’; the nature of ‘self’ presented in Pacific life writing; and the tendency for many of these texts to be written by ‘outsiders’, or at least the increasingly contested nature of what that term means.

Legal scholars, economists, and international development practitioners often assume that the state is capable of 'securing' rights to land and addressing gender inequality in land tenure. In this innovative study of land tenure in Solomon Islands, Rebecca Monson challenges these assumptions. Monson demonstrates that territorial disputes have given rise to a legal system characterised by state law, custom, and Christianity, and that the legal construction and regulation of property has, in fact, deepened gender inequalities and other forms of social difference. These processes have concentrated formal land control in the hands of a small number of men leaders, and reproduced the state as a hypermasculine domain, with significant implications for public authority, political participation, and state formation. Drawing insights from legal scholarship and political ecology in particular, this book offers a significant study of gender and legal pluralism in the Pacific, illuminating ongoing global debates about gender inequality, land tenure, ethnoterritorial struggles and the post colonial state.