Portal de Periódicos da CAPES

Australia, New Zealand, and the Pacific Islands Since the First World War.

1980; University of British Columbia; Volume: 53; Issue: 3 Linguagem: Inglês

10.2307/2757354

1715-3379

Stephen Levine, William S. Livingston, William Roger Louis,

Island Studies and Pacific Affairs

This volume is an attempt to assess the significant historical de velopments in the Southwest Pacific since the First World War.Its scope encompasses Australia, New Zealand, and the islands in the adjacent seas.Its themes are social and humanistic rather than scientific or technical, but the problems with which it is concerned include complex issues and a variety of intellectual disciplines.Some of the essays deal with international relations, some with politics, some with changing social structures, and one with literary themes.More specifically the theme of the volume can be described as the evolution of a regional identity, along with the evolution of separate national identities, in Australia, New Zealand, and the Pacific islands.What ties the chapters together and gives the book as a whole a particular character is the con sideration of these new and distinct identities against a back ground dominated by the simultaneous erosion of British power and expansion of American influence.It is the interaction among three forces-dwindling British power, rising American influence, and nationalism in a variety of forms-that has transformed the Southwest Pacific since the time of the First World War, a trans formation seen most clearly in the decolonization of the islands.The Southwest Pacific was-and perhaps in a sense still isalmost wholly a British area.Historically it has appeared as a Brit ish enclave set down in a distant and alien world.Australia and New Zealand saw themselves as outposts of Britain, dependent in many ways on the mother country.But, in the period treated in this book, the dominion and power of Britain have diminished, and the peoples of the Southwest Pacific have had to reexamine their position and reassess their policies.A recurring and insistent theme of the book is accordingly the gradual decline of British power and the ascendancy of other influences, above all the Ameri can.