544 pp. May 1986
cloth, ISBN 978-0-8248-1078-8, $30.00
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Keywords: |
Pacific
Melanesia
history
anthropology |
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Wealth of the Solomons: A History of a Pacific Archipelago, 1800-1978
by Judith A. Bennett
Pacific Islands Monograph Series, No. 3
Center for Pacific Islands Studies, UH
Choice special academic merit award, 1987–88
“A model of how Pacific history should be written.” —Journal of Pacific History
Judith A. Bennett is an Australian and was educated at All Hallows’ School, Brisbane, and the University of Queensland. She is currently lecturer in history and warden of St. Margaret’s College, University of Otago, Dunedin, New Zealand. Prior to that she taught at Massey University, Palmerston North, New Zealand, and she also taught for several years in Papua New Guinea. She received her M.A. from the University of Hawai‘i, and Ph.D. from the Australian National University. She also holds a Dip.Ed. in Developing Countries from the University of Papua New Guinea.
Dr. Bennett first went to the Solomon Islands in 1972 as a member of an interdisciplinary research team seeking to identify population pressure on south Guadalcanal. She returned to the Solomons in 1976 to conduct the oral and supplementary documentary research on which her doctoral dissertation and this book are based.
“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.” —from the Editor’s Note
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