Allan Patience

This book is a milestone in the historiography of Australia and Papua New Guinea. It puts paid to sterile debates about whether PNG’s independence came too early. ‘Decolonisation,’ Professor Donald Denoon concludes, ‘is by no means complete and independence is a work in progress.’ What happened on 16 September 1975 was the beginning of a ‘trial separation’: ‘Australian rule over th ... (read more)

This handsome volume purports to be an ‘overview of the current state of social-science research about Australia at the beginning of the twenty-first century’. Its editors have assembled a broad, if less than representative, group of specialists, most of whom comment on aspects of one of three fields declared, by editorial fiat, to constitute contemporary social science: economics, political s ... (read more)

The cliché of the South Pacific as a tropical paradise is contradicted by the hellishness of the Melanesian/Polynesian political scheming that characterises most of the region. It is a form of scheming that would make Byzantine politics appear like the polite equivalent of an election for office in the Country Women’s Association. From Port Moresby to Suva, political élites hide behind a frayi ... (read more)