Related Papers
JRAI Book Review: Memories of War: Micronesians in the Pacific War
J. P. Linstroth
Review of Taem Blong Faet: World War II in Melanesia, edited by Hugh Laracy and Geoffrey White; The Big Death: Solomon Islanders Remember World War II/Bikfala Faet: Olketa Solomon Aelanda Rimembarem Wol Wo Tu, edited by Geoffrey M. White, David W. Gegeo, David Akin, and Karen Watson-Gegeo
1990 •
Suzanne Falgout
Multivocal Archaeologies of the Pacific War, 1941–45
World War II in the Solomon Islands: Conflict and Aftermath
2023 •
Martin Gibbs
The Solomon Islands are notable as the region where Japanese and American forces first fully engaged in combat following the surprise raid on Pearl Harbor on 7th December 1941. Intense battles took place on land, sea, and in the air, with both sides formulating or trialling tactics and materiel for the first time. These conflicts left an immense body of sites, artefacts, and human remains across the islands, with lasting impacts on local cultural practices. There are also extensive bodies of primary literature which has survived from these conflicts, which represent an equally substantial resource of memoirs from all levels of combatant as well as post-war analyses and histories. Despite this wealth of documentary evidence, archaeological studies of the extensive physical remnants of World War II have been surprisingly limited, as have those of modern Solomon Islander engagements with these material legacies. This chapter provides an overview of archaeological investigations, current roles, and issues with the conservation and management of World War II heritage in modern Solomon Islander economy and society.
After the Typhoon: Multicultural Archaeologies of World War II on Peleliu, Palau, Micronesia.
Steve Cypra, Rick Knecht, Gavin J Lindsay, Calvin Emesiochel, David McQuillen
Angels, Heroes and Traitors: Images of Some Papuans in the Second World War
1997 •
Janice Newton
The Journal of Pacific History
'If It Wasn't For Us … ': Peripheral Narratives of the Pacific War
2022 •
Dario Di Rosa
Scholarship on the Indigenous experience of World War II has justly focused on recording accounts of direct witnesses of that period. Such a sense of urgency, at least in Papua New Guinea, has led to the neglect of areas of the country that, though not directly affected by the war, were invested in the war effort by providing labour and soldiers. Communities residing in those areas recall stories of their war heroes as key figures for the liberation of the country and, ultimately, its current adherence to 'Western values'. Through an analysis of the moral claims that those peripheral stories entail, in this article I suggest potential directions for the study of narratives of World War II that move beyond 'the era of the witness'.
EDITOR'S FORUM PACIFIC ISLANDS HISTORY IN THE 1980s: NEW DIRECTIONS OR MONOGRAPH MYOPIA
Tetahh Momolevu
The modern study of Pacific islands history has made a significant contribution to our knowledge of the area, particularly of the period of culture contact in the nineteenth century. Nevertheless, it has to a considerable extent lost sight of basic directions, such as some of those outlined by its principal founding father-the late J. W. Davidson. Today, historians of the Pacific islands seem to be heading rapidly towards a state of monograph myopia. We are finding out more and more about less and less. Relatively little consideration seems to be given to any overall purpose or direction. This paper will attempt to explain how this state of affairs has come about, and will suggest some new directions. Some of the issues which will be raised are not of course unique to Pacific islands history. They can have a relevance to many other branches of historical study. Until the early 1950s, the history of Pacific islands, if it were studied at all, was an adjunct of imperial history. The islands were important to historians only in so far as they could be placed within the context of Eu-ropean imperialism. These historians were concerned with European initiatives and motives in the Pacific-particularly those of explorers, evangelists , administrators. The Pacific islanders, their cultures and their general way of life, were largely irrelevant in this imperial context. Nor was culture contact studied for its own sake but only in so far as it might highlight the activities of imperial agents. The decolonization of Pacific islands history was begun in the 1940s by J. W. Davidson. In the 1950s and 60s he further developed his views laying a basis for our modern studies.
Fabrications
Architectures of the Pacific Carceral Archipelago: Second World War Internment and Prisoner of War Camps
2016 •
Anoma Pieris
The Contemporary Pacific
Remembrance of Pacific Pasts: An Invitation to Remake History (review)
2003 •
Anurag Subramani
Pacific Affairs
Pacific Lives, Pacific Places: Bursting Boundaries in Pacific History
2002 •
Maureen M Fuary
