Expatriate and multinational businessmen and companies have, over the last hundred years, drastically changed the environments of some of the islands of Melanesia. In some, like Fiji and parts of New Caledonia, the changes have taken place over a long period of foreign exploitation. In others, like the island of New Guinea, large-scale forestry, mining, hydroelectric, agricultural and fishing projects are more recent.

Owen Webster described The Outward Journey, the first part of his unfinished biography of Frank Dalby Davison, as a 'non-fiction novel'. In writing it he combined the talents of a creative biographer with those of a social historian and literary critic. The Outward Journey is the story of a writer's development, beginning with a vivid evocation of the personalities surrounding Davison in his childhood and going on to trace the early experiences which were to influence his major works.

"These pages" writes Bruno Zevi, "have the same goal as any other heretical act: to arouse dissent. If they provoke argument, they will have achieved their aim. Instead of talking endlessly about architecture, we shall finally begin to speak architecture." The Modern Language of Architecture by Bruno Zevi, whom Frank Lloyd Wright called "the most penetrating architectural critic of our time," should be read by anyone with an interest in designing, constructing, buying, selling, looking at, or living in a building.

The discovery of inhalation anesthesia in 1846 began a new era in surgery. Simpson demonstrated the value of chloroform as an anesthetic, and many surgeons quickly adopted it. But chloroform was dangerous if mishandled and only after considerable controversy and numerous fatalities was its use thoroughly understood and established. Painless childbirth was a different matter, and Simpson had to fight a long battle before the ignorance and prejudices of his colleagues were overcome. Ten years later an even more lengthy struggle began over antiseptic surgery.

This book contrasts the approaches of Australia and the Federal Republic of Germany to problems of federal government, with special reference to political and administrative aspects of federalism, provisions for constitutional review and the administration of justice, the organisation of educational and cultural affairs, the role of local government, and fiscal and economic aspects of federalism.

In November 1960 the Australian Government brought in emergency economic measures to avert a balance of payments crisis. The stock market collapsed, unemployment rose sharply, and for the two next years there were signs of recession. The episode has been described as Australia{u2019}s {u2018}first independent slump{u2019}, and the government was strongly criticised. Dr Waterman was deeply sceptical of the explanations put forward at the time, some of which have passed into folklore, and began a detailed investigation into the sources and history of the 1961 recession.

'South Sea Islanders and the Queensland Labour Trade' was first published in 1893. It is an exciting first hand account of a trade never free from violence and controversy and at the same time a valuable document on inter-racial contact and race relations. Wawn recruited or repatriated island labourers in every area - the New Hebrides, the Solomons, New Britain, New Ireland, the New Guinea off-shore islands and the Gilberts. He encountered every hazard of the trade from shipwreck to murder and wrote a vivid account of his voyages. But his book is not just an adventure story.

Nauru: Phosphate and Political Progress is the story of David and Goliath in a modern political setting in the South Seas. Controlled, protected, or occupied successively by Germans, Australians, British, and Japanese and then again by Australians under U.N. Trusteeship, all (except Germany) for the purpose of exploiting the island{u2019}s one resource - phosphate - Nauru is one of the smallest and most isolated islands in the Pacific, with a mere 3000 inhabitants.

"From the eighteenth-century accounts of Captain James Cook to the writings of James A. Michener, enraptured descriptions of the Pacific islands have identified the term 'South Seas{u2019} with visions of a blissful life in perpetual summer on white beaches shaded by swaying palm trees.