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RR 2001/409 The Pacific Islands: An Encyclopedia Edited by Brij V. Lal and Kate Fortune University of Hawaii Press Honolulu, HI 2000 xxxvi+664pp. ISBN 0 8248 2265 X L115.00 with accompanying CD-ROM.
For further information contact Steven Hirashima. E-mail: [email protected] Keyword Pacific Islands
Hefty and handsome, this pioneering reference work meets an immense, long-felt need. Its Australian National University editors (Fiji-born Brij V Lal and New Zealander Kate Fortune), the Asia Pacific Press of China (designers of the volume), and publisher UHP merit the gratitude of today's Pacific scholars - and of those in generations yet to come - for a truly remarkable and seminal achievement. Its importance is underlined by the fact that AusAID, Australia's principal international aid agency, gave the project generous financial assistance, and that the Australian Department of Foreign Affairs and Trade chose the encyclopedia as Australia's gift to the South Pacific Commission, now named the Pacific Community, to mark its fiftieth anniversary.
Encompassing the limitless fascination and bewildering diversity and complexity of the Pacific island world within a single volume is a daunting task, requiring almost a decade to accomplish. The editors mobilised some 200 writers and scholars from the Pacific, the United States, Canada, Europe, and Japan, to present thousands of entries, all fully indexed, covering major aspects of life in the islands, past and present.
The focus...