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A PAPUAN PLUTOCRACY: Ranked Exchange on Rossel Island. By John Liep. Aarhus (Denmark): Aarhus University Press, 2009. xxxviii, 376 pp. (Tables, figures, maps, coloured photos, B&W photos.) US$80.00, paper. ISBN 978-87-7934-446-4.
A Papuan Plutocracy is an increasingly rare achievement: a richly detailed, fully rounded, descriptive ethnography of a fascinating Pacific Island people. Standing in the tradition established by Malinowski in his influential studies of the nearby Trobriand Islands, Liep focuses upon a unique system of exchange-not the famed Kula, but a complex system of shell money unique to Rossel Island, on the eastern fringe of the Massim region of Papua New Guinea. Rossel money was initially studied by W.E. Armstrong, based upon a two-month sojourn on the island in 1921. While acknowledging some complexities, Armstrong concluded that the system amounted to "primitive capitalism" where "everybody was striving to make a profit by lending shells at interest" (xxvii). His model was almost instantly controversial, but it was not until Liep arrived on Rossel in 1971 that an attempt was made to re-evaluate the evidence in situ. This monograph is the result of some 25 months of fieldwork on Rossel between 1971 and 1990 as well as many years contemplating the nature of money and of exchange in general. It fills one of the few remaining gaps in...