Overall, he advocates restraint—in our judgments on island practices, in our assumption that many of these are dysfunctional, and in leading the charge for “development” before understanding the broader context of the culture we are ...

Now, drawing on more than four decades of experience living and working in the region, Francis X. Hezel assesses the most striking changes to have swept over the islands in the past fifty years.

“Hezel writes clearly and with erudition and commands an impressive body of information.

Summoning the Powers Beyond collects and reconstructs the old religions of preindustrial Micronesia.

Hezel has written an authoritative and engaging narrative of this succession of colonial regimes, drawing upon a broad range of published and archival sources as well as his own considerable knowledge of the region.

"The chapters of this volume were originally written as background papers to assist the local churches to prepare for their centennial celebrations, as these occurred over a six-year period (1986-1992) in different parts of what was then a ...

Tourism was a distant hope as an engine for economic growth.

Only one of the Pacific Island nations is close to full economic self-reliance at present, while one or two others may be within striking distance. The rest--and they are the majority--seem to have no real prospects for full self-reliance.