Island Studies Journal 4(1), Book Reviews

Some but not all the locations covered by the book are islands, and the introduction frames the quite disparate studies in the context of an oceanic region (like Braudel's Mediterranean, or the Atlantic) rather than 'island studies'.It cites Paul D'Arcy and the late Epeli Hau'ofa as proponents of the view that oceans link as well as isolate islands.It is as much about the Pacific Rim as the Pacific Islands.Of the islands, the text only looks closely at two.The first is Kaho'olawe, which was subject to an extraordinary series of environmental changes, brought about by indigenous people, waves of settler commercial interests (cattle, sheep and goats), and then restoration as part of an indigenous renaissance in Hawaii.The second is Guam, where the focus is on a series of environmental disputes.There are side references to the Philippines, Okinawa and Samoa.The Aleutian Islands are discussed more generally in the context of Alaskan resource politics and conservation.The focus is on the United States, and its impact, against a background historical idea of the expanding frontier, leading to conflicts with indigenous people, and a rising consciousness of the natural world that was being lost in the process.That natural world was recovered, domesticated, in suburbanization such as that which the author describes around San Francisco and Seattle.The author repeatedly emphasizes the impact of World War Two, and the resulting US victory, as a key driver of change in the region, which is as true of the South Pacific as it is of the North.The 'postwar' framing is shown most painfully in his discussion of urban planning in Hiroshima after the atomic bomb, and pervasively in his discussion of the role of the US Navy in protecting its institutional turf on Kaho'olawe (which was used as a firing range), and running Guam 'as if it were a ship'.The book shows the mixed blessings that the US has brought to these territories.There was exploitation of natural resources, such as commercial fishing and oil in Alaska, but also the growth of federal government concern with environmental conservation in the creation of national parks, and requirements for environmental impact assessments (the latter providing much of the primary data for Blackford's history).The US absorbed many of the peoples of the region as immigrants, or migrant workers.The US Navy had an ambiguous relationship with indigenous people: taking land, and arguing through the courts to defend its interests; but also insulating other land and indigenous people from some commercial

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