Big-men and business: entrepreneurship and economic growth in the New Guinea Highlands »

Publication date: 1973

High in the New Guinea mountains a sociological drama of unique design has been unfolding since the early 1930s. At that time the first of the Europeans who would take part in the area{u2019}s development trekked into the remote highlands. These early gold prospectors, patrol officers, and missionaries made the first outside contacts with the Stone Age Gorokan people. These encounters ultimately catapulted the Gorokans, subsistence gardeners cultivating sweet potatoes and raising pigs, squarely into the twentieth century. The magnitude of the economic and social changes that followed in the next forty years clearly distinguish the Gorokan case as one of the most remarkable examples of human adaptability to be witnessed in modern times. Although popular thinking has it that traditional societies are change-resistant and that social reforms therefore must precede economic and other types of development, the Gorokans, remarkably, reversed the process and passed from the Stone Age to the twentieth-century marketplace in one generation. Today they are heavily involved in growing coffee, they have developed their own trucking industry for transporting coffee and other cash crops to market, and they are venturing into the raising of beef cattle and the operation of trade stores and various businesses. Big-Men and Business is the record of this extraordinary case of economic change, based on field study conducted in 1967 and 1968. Dr. Finney interviewed many of the Gorokan leaders of this commercial revolution, and draws comparisons between the Gorokan experience and that of other New Guinean peoples. One of the results of his research indicates that the Gorokans may have been predisposed to entrepreneurship. Traditionally, a Gorokan "big-man" was the man who acquired the valuables of his society - cowrie shells, mother-ofpearl shell, pigs, and bird-of-paradise plumes. These leaders were honored for their skills in the flourishing local exchange system. This fact, coupled with a supportive colonial relationship and a favorable natural environment, enhanced the Gorokan{u2019}s adaptation, and thus the leap from the world of traditional exchange to one where business is conducted on a cash basis was, in reality, a short step.

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Pacific Islands portraits »

Publication date: 1973

Till the beginning of the nineteenth century the Pacific Islands had known Europeans mainly as transient visitors. Before it ended they had been drawn within the frontiers of the Western world. The changing way of life of the Pacific is shown through this series of portraits of men and women who lived in the islands between the early years of the nineteenth century and the outbreak of the First World War. Five of the portraits are studies of islanders: King George Tupou I, of Tonga; Cakobau and Ma{u2019}afu, of Fiji, Baiteke and Binoka, of Abemama, in the Gilbert Islands; Kwaisulia, of the Solomon Islands; and Lauaki of Samoa. Two are of missionaries - Bishop Patteson and Father Montrouzier - and one of a missionary family, the Henrys of Tahiti. One is of a trader and adventurer, Peter Dillon. And three are portraits of groups of people: settlers in the {u2018}beach communities{u2019}; planters in Fiji; and labour recruiters and the islanders they recruited. Together they constitute a gallery of great interest, revealing the colour and texture of life in the Pacific. Only one of the writers is himself a Pacific islander; but all have lived in the islands and responded to their spell. They have thus been able to present their subjects with sensitivity, against an intimate knowledge of the local background, as well as with scholarly accuracy, derived from thorough study of the documentary sources.

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Studies in the eighteenth century [v.] 2: papers presented at the second David Nichol Smith Memorial Seminar Canberra 1970 »

Publication date: 1973

This volume presents an array of studies on many aspects of the eighteenth century: on the novel, history, the history of ideas, drama, poetry and sentimentality. The essays are as diverse as 'Pope's Essay on Man and the French Enlightenment' and 'Of Silk-worms and Farthingales and the Will of God'. One group is concerned with the works and ideas of Bayle, Alexander Gerard, Diderot, Fuseli, Hawkesworth and Swift among others. The essays are the work of leading scholars from many disciplines and were presented at the Second David Nichol Smith Seminar; together they reflect some of the liveliest and most up-to-date trends in the present reexamination of the period. The book will be invaluable to all students of the literature, thought, and civilisation of the eighteenth century.

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The new South Pacific »

Publication date: 1973

The New South Pacific introduces the reader to the scattered islands and territories of Polynesia, Melanesia and Micronesia. While some are still under foreign rule most of the islands are now emerging as independent nations. After a century and a half of European control they must now work out their own destiny. The author describes the indigenous traditions of the past and the impact of the alien's way of life. Future trends and developments are also covered. But the main focus is strongly on the present and the search for an authentic identity here and now. Politics and religion, art and culture, social and economic organisation - all are discussed in a lucid manner. The writer's personal judgments are sometimes controversial but always stated clearly, and his text is not without humour. This book is an important contribution to the growing body of writing on the Third World and to the Development Debate. The issues raised are of vital importance to a world that faces the choice of confrontation leading to polarisation, or dialogue leading to an acceptance of a pluralistic world community. Because of the issues raised and the simplicity of style this book will be welcomed by the general reader as well as being a valuable addition to the serious study of South Pacific territories and people.

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The Moscow agreements and strategic arms limitation »

Publication date: 1973

The Strategic Arms Limitations Talks Agreements are the most important result of the long search by the United States and the Soviet Union for a means of controlling nuclear weapons. This paper presents an authoritative analysis of the Agreements, which were signed in Moscow in 1972. Professor Bull seeks to estimate the value of the Agreements in relation to the objectives of arms control set out more than a decade ago in his pioneering theoretical work The Control of the Arms Race and to assess their significance for the political and strategic relations among the major powers. His findings are based on research and conversations in America, Europe and Japan.

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A blanket a year »

Publication date: 1973

Land rights, perhaps the best known of Aboriginal grievances, is bitterly expressed in 'All they give us now for our land is a blanket once a year'. Yet, as Broom and Jones show in this book, the Aborigines are disadvantaged in every way. No one knows who are Aborigines, how many there are, what jobs they hold, what education they have received. Yet, until this extraordinary ignorance is rectified, there is no basis for planning vital improvements. The authors stress the urgent need for public authorities to gather information on Aboriginal health, housing, employment, and education. Without this information no attempt to overcome the gross inequalities can hope to succeed. A Blanket a Year offers constructive professional help. It is vital reading for politicians, administrators, social workers, educationists, and for all fair-minded Australians.

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Essays on the sources for Chinese history »

Publication date: 1973

This volume is a guide to sources for the study of Chinese history. While making no claim to comprehensiveness, it ranges widely over various types and periods - oracle bones, standard histories, wooden documents, genealogical registers, and other sources from pre-Han to modern times and from peoples as diverse as the Tibetans and the French. The later chapters indicate sources for modern China and are invaluable for historians seeking information on such subjects as the early Communist Party and the Kuomintang. The contributors are drawn from four continents and the essence of their cumulative knowledge is distilled here, in fitting tribute on his seventieth birthday to the eminent Chinese scholar, Emeritus Professor C. P. FitzGerald.

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Nationalism: the nature and evolution of an idea »

Publication date: 1973

In the two centuries since the French Revolution, political nationalism has become a force of tremendous importance in the modern world. It is also an extremely complex one. It helps hold together the historical events of the nineteenth and twentieth centuries, showing them to be part of a continuing crisis. It has brought the histories of modern Asia, Africa and the Pacific into relation with European history, and made them part of universal history and politics. It can be, and has been, democratic or authoritarian, forward-looking or backward-looking, socialist or reactionary. The lectures collected here, presented by some of the leading thinkers in the field, discuss nationalism in Europe and Asia in all its complexity. They will be of vital interest not only to students of history and politics but to all those who seek to understand the contemporary world.

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Education and university enrolment policies in China, 1949-1971 »

Publication date: 1973

Before the Cultural Revolution, observers of the Chinese communist regime assumed that the traditional links between education and society still held. Certainly Mao Tse-tung and Liu Shao-ch{u2019}i both inherited the traditional ideas; but the turmoil of the Cultural Revolution revealed that each placed his own interpretation on them. This study examines Party directives regarding the selection of students for higher education in the light of the conflict between {u2018}proletarian{u2019} and {u2018}revisionist{u2019} approaches. It also investigates, and refutes, the charges the Red Guards levelled against revisionist educational methods and argues that inequalities in the education system developed by default. The changing role of higher education in an industrial society is a problem not confined to China. This monograph will therefore interest not only those especially concerned with the politics of China, but also students of comparative education.

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