Island Studies Journal , Vol. 6, No. 2, 2011, pp. 261-288 BOOK REVIEWS SECTION Doug Munro (2009) The Ivory Tower and Beyond: Participant Historians of the Pacific, Newcastle on Tyne: Cambridge Scholars Publishing, 350pp. £44.99p. ISBN: 978-1-4438- 0534-6. In The Ivory Tower and Beyond, Doug Munro examines the work of five Pacific historians who in various ways moved beyond the expected responsibilities of a university lecturer: teaching and archival research (and administration, but that is seen by both Munro and his subjects as a chore to be endured) - and in doing so have shaped the way Pacific history as a sub-discipline has developed. Munro, citing Maxine Berg (biographer of Eileen Power), suggests that historians ‘deserve to be remembered’; in part because their interests and activities outside the academy shape the history they write (p. 6). The ‘participant historian’ of the subtitle, as used by Munro, covers several types of outside involvement: civic involvement unrelated to professional expertise, constitutional and governmental responsibilities that draw on professional expertise, extensive use of fieldwork, and writing which moves across disciplinary boundaries. One might quibble about whether all these activities should be included, but that seems ungenerous. In practice the breadth of possible activities ‘beyond the ivory tower’ adds great interest to the accounts. The key chapter of the book is the one on J.W. Davidson (1915-73), the acknowledged ‘father’ of the sub-discipline of Pacific History. It does not cover his constitution-making in detail; rather it looks at the precursors to that involvement, showing how Davidson’s PhD study at Cambridge allowed him to move beyond the Eurocentric focus on British or French policy in the Pacific to investigate informal rather than formal agents of empire: traders, settlers, the men on the spot. He was also able to work with the anthropologist Raymond Firth, even though Firth was at the London School of Economics. The focus on anthropological understanding along with close examination of events in the islands led to the development of the ‘island-centred history’ that the Australian National University Pacific historians were to promote under Davidson’s leadership after his appointment as Professor of Pacific History in 1952. Munro also shows how Davidson’s constitutional work for Samoa and the Cook Islands was prefigured in the influence of Lord Hailey and of Margery Perham, which also advocated self-government by the late 1940s. Interestingly, the University of the South Pacific Library’s current copy of Hailey’s African Survey is inscribed ‘JW Davidson 1943’. Other chapters demonstrate other forms of activity ‘beyond the Ivory tower’. Munro investigates the civic involvement of John Beaglehole (1901-71), who as well as editing Cook’s and Banks’ Journals and writing a biography of Cook, was involved in disputes over freedom of speech at the University of New Zealand, and criticised the actions of the New Zealand government over the Waterfront Strike Emergency Regulations in 1951, and both sides of politics for bribery during the 1957 elections. His musical interests led to involvement with various arts organizations, and a somewhat unseemly row about the conductor of the National Orchestra in 1946. Munro’s sad chapter on Richard Gilson, whose book Samoa, 1830-1900 was finished posthumously by his wife Muriel, and Davidson, emphasises Gilson’s anthropological insights and obsession with detail. Book Reviews Section Beaglehole and Gilson were not seriously involved in political developments in the Pacific Islands. In contrast, the early career of Harry Maude (1906-2006) was within the British colonial service as District Officer in the southern Gilbert Islands, where he was responsible, at the age of 23 and with very little contact with more senior officials, for the wellbeing of 10,000 people spread over a vast area. He revelled in the place and people. After a spell in Suva during World War II and in Sydney with the embryonic South Pacific Commission he changed career and joined Davidson at the ANU in 1957. After many years as an actor in Pacific affairs, Maude then had to establish his academic credentials. Like Gilson, he was appointed to an academic position without a PhD: a marked difference from current practices. He spent the next few years on careful archival research into Spanish exploration in the Pacific, the coconut oil trade and the Tahitian pork trade, and Pitcairn Island, and proved his academic worth. But further ‘participant involvement’ was confined to a strong role in the establishment of the Pacific Manuscripts Bureau and to writing about some of his earlier experiences, particularly the re-location of Gilbertese on the Phoenix Islands in 1937. It is Brij Lal’s combination of academic history writing and direct constitutional involvement which most closely mirrors that of Davidson. After study at the University of the South Pacific and the University of British Columbia, Lal gained a scholarship to the ANU to write a PhD thesis on the origin of the girmityas , the Indian indentured labourers brought to Fiji to cultivate sugar. He subsequently taught at USP and the University of Hawai’i, then returned to Canberra and the ANU, where he has been ever since. During this time his research interests encompassed both girmitya history and contemporary Fiji politics. In 1995 he was appointed to the Fiji Constitution Review Commission; if the report produced by Lal, Tomasi Vakatora and Sir Paul Reeves had been accepted in toto as the new Constitution for Fiji the subsequent politics of Fiji might have been different. But the Commission’s recommendation that two thirds – the highest figure the framers dared suggest - of the seats in the lower house of Parliament should be elected on a common roll, rather than communal rolls, was rejected by the existing government, and racial politics ruled again. The two subsequent Fiji coups – in 2000 and 2006 – demonstrate that Fiji’s political ills are far from solution, and Lal’s expulsion from Fiji in 2009 for allegedly breaking his visa conditions shows that the role of a participant historian can be politically fraught and even dangerous. In some ways, Munro’s book reads like an anthropological study: that of a tribe of which I am glad to be a member. So many of the names and places are familiar. Alongside the serious discussion is a truly delightful amount of tribal gossip, with reminders of the Coombs Tea Room and the prehistory of various feuds evident in the corridors of the ANU many years later. Whether this will be seen as a positive by all readers is not so clear, but for those within the tribe it is a treat. It is something of an irony that this book, largely a celebration of the ANU Research School of Pacific History, is published just as the ANU Pacific history tribe is in apparent decline, and the fulcrum of Pacific historical studies is moving, to other universities such as Deakin and Queensland within Australia, to New Zealand, to the University of the South Pacific (which does not get a very good press in Munro’s account) and the University of Hawai’i. It is also moving to incorporate more Pacific scholars, a trend Munro prefigures with the inclusion of Lal. 262 Book Reviews Section It is unfortunate that the production standards of this book leave something to be desired, with rather a lot of missing words throughout the text. [Editor’s note: these production issues have been corrected in a subsequent edition of the book.] However most are fairly obvious and do not seriously detract from a serious historiographic study of the sub-discipline of Pacific history, enlivened by fascinating personal insights about some major practitioners. Christine Weir University of the South Pacific Suva, Fiji Islands [email protected] Peter Rudiak-Gould (2009) Surviving Paradise: One Year on a Disappearing Island , New York, Union Square Press, 244pp. ISBN: 978-1-4027-6664-0. US$21.95. Small islands, particularly in the tropical seas, have the idyllic image of rest, relaxation, and beauty: all the elements of a utopia. Many songs and poems wax lyrically about the joy of being isolated in such places, the epitome of paradise. Survival, mentally and physically, should be smooth because the island caters to one’s every need. Peter Rudiak-Gould’s travel tale Surviving Paradise: One Year on a Disappearing Island tells it all in the title. It is indeed a survival tale. These corners of the world have their indisputable heavenly qualities, plus traits that are the complete opposite. Voluntarily exiling himself from his native California, Rudiak-Gould chooses to teach English for a year in the Marshall Islands. He is part of a group of other American volunteers taking a year to teach English at different locations around the atoll country. To challenge himself, Rudiak-Gould specifically requests an outer island and in August 2003 arrives on Ujae, population 450. He walks the island’s circumference in 45 minutes and the diameter in five. It feels like a prison: another common island image. Until he discovers the island world beyond the land. Not just the ocean surface and depths, and the other islands surrounding the lagoon, but also the culture, mindset, livelihoods and life of Ujae’s inhabitants. Through 18 enjoyable chapters, Rudiak-Gould discovers and details facts and experiences. Facts in terms of his and the islanders’ daily and seasonal life. Experiences in terms of his thoughts throughout the year, how he dealt with the cross-cultural and cross-environmental challenges, how he learned to be an islander, and how he grew to come to terms with himself. The Author’s Note and Prologue at the beginning, with the concluding Epilogue, nicely frame the core material.