Papua New Guinea Books

The Ghost Mountain Boys: Their Epic March and the Terrifying Battle for New Guinea--The Forgotten War of the South Pacific

James Campbell

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Total reviews: 21 Average rating: 4.5 of 5

Editorial Review:

Lying due north of Australia, New Guinea is among the world’s largest islands. In 1942, when World War II exploded onto its shores, it was an inhospitable, cursorily mapped, disease-ridden land of dense jungle, towering mountain peaks, deep valleys, and fetid swamps. Coveted by the Japanese for its strategic position, New Guinea became the site of one of the South Pacific’s most savage campaigns. Despite their lack of jungle training, the 32nd Division’s Ghost Mountain Boys were assigned the most grueling mission of the entire Pacific campaign: to march 130 miles over the rugged Owen Stanley Mountains and to protect the right flank of the Australian army as they fought to push the Japanese back to the village of Buna on New Guinea’s north coast.

Comprised of National Guardsmen from Michigan and Wisconsin, reserve officers, and draftees from across the country, the 32nd Division lacked more than training—they were without even the basics necessary for survival. The men were not issued the specialized clothing that later became standard issue for soldiers fighting in the South Pacific; they fought in hastily dyed combat fatigues that bled in the intense humidity and left them with festering sores. They waded through brush and vines without the aid of machetes. They did not have insect repellent. Without waterproof containers, their matches were useless and the quinine and vitamin pills they carried, as well as salt and chlorination tablets, crumbled in their pockets. Exhausted and pushed to the brink of human endurance, the Ghost Mountain Boys fell victim to malnutrition and disease. Forty-two days after they set out, they arrived two miles south of Buna, nearly shattered by the experience.

Arrival in Buna provided no respite. The 32nd Division was ordered to launch an immediate assault on the Japanese position. After two months of furious—sometimes hand-to-hand—combat, the decimated division finally achieved victory. The ferocity of the struggle for Buna was summed up in Time magazine on December 28, 1942, three weeks before the Japanese army was defeated: “Nowhere in the world today are American soldiers engaged in fighting so desperate, so merciless, so bitter, or so bloody.”

Reminiscent of classics like Band of Brothers and The Things They Carried, this harrowing portrait of a largely overlooked campaign is part war diary, part extreme adventure tale, and (through letters, journals, and interviews) part biography of a group of men who fought to survive in an environment every bit as fierce as the enemy they faced.

History of United States Naval Operations in World War II. Vol. 8: New Guinea and the Marianas, March 1944-August 1944 (History of United States Naval Operations in World War II)

Samuel Eliot Morison

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Total reviews: 3 Average rating: 4.5 of 5

Editorial Review:

This installment of Samuel Eliot Morison's insider history of the U.S. Navy covers five of the most eventful months of the Pacific war, March through July 1944. Awash with spectacular rescues of downed airmen, bold beach landings, and brilliant though risky strategic gambles, this volume carries Morison's coverage of the war in the Pacific through the Allies' securing of Dutch New Guinea and the Marianas.

The three assaults that comprised Operation "Forager"--in which Morison participated--add up to one of the most important amphibious operations in history: protracted, bitterly contested, requiring great flexibility as well as fortitude. The development of powerful new weapons and sophisticated new tactics, together with the greatly extended distance of active operations from continental bases, rendered naval operations more vast and more complicated than ever before in history.

After nearly two years of bitter and almost continuous fighting, the Allies have broken the Bismarcks Barrier, conquered key Japanese positions in the Gilbert and Marshall Islands, and cleared the way for an advance along the New Guinea-Mindanao axis. General MacArthur is intent on his one road to Tokyo, but Combined Chiefs of Staff decide to send Admiral Nimitz and the Pacific Fleet on a second, northern route, parallel to MacArthur's. Morison follows MacArthur's Southwest Pacific Forces in a series of bold leaps to Holandiak, Wakde, Biak, and the Vogelkop, also covering Pacific Fleet operations from the end of the Marshall Islands campaign to the recovery of Guam.

A Bastard of a Place: The Australians in Papua

Peter Brune

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Customer Reviews:
Total reviews: 2 Average rating: 4.5 of 5

An Important WW II Battle Little Known in the United States 5 out of 5 stars.
13 of 14 people found this review helpful.

This book belongs in any library of books on World War II.

At the beginning of World War II the Australians sent the cream of their army to fight in North Africa. And they did a supurb job there. The stories of Montgomery's success over Rommel is filled with the Australians did this, and the Australians did that.

But then came Pearl Harbor and the Japanese expansion to the south and east. The Japanese expanded to the Solomons in the east. To the south the Japanese landed on and controlled the northern coast of the island of Papua New Guinea. Their intent was to have their army march southward to meet a naval force going around the island. From there was the possibility of invading Australia.

To the east the Americans drew the line by establishing a series of bases in the New Hebrides. First the American Navy fought a battle with this Japanese naval force, it is called the battle of the Coral Sea. Then the Americans invaded the Japanese conquered Solomon Islands to prevent the Japanese from building an air base at a place called Guadalcanal. The Japanese got no further east.

No less important, but almost unknown here in the United States was the fighting in The Australians held the southern. In between lay the Kododa trail. It was indeed a Bastard of a Place. It's still a bitch of a place just to walk it without being burdened with equipment and someone trying to kill you.

The Australians wanted their army back from North Africa, the British said "No." So the Australians had to fight the battle with militia and conscripts. They did, and they won. They pushed the Japanese back to the northern coast and with a series of other battles kicked them off of the island completely. From here the march northward began.

During this time Dougout Doug MacAuthor was in Australia issuing press releases about how great he was doing. There was almost nothing in the American press about the Kokoda trail.

This book, written in Australia, is very well researched and very well written. It deserves wide distribution in the US to bring an understanding that the entire Pacific was wasn't won entirely by the U.S. Marines.

Editorial Review:

The story of the five battles that changed Australia forever, this compelling narrative incorporates hundreds of interviews with the soldiers who fought at Kokoda, Milne Bay, Gona, Buna, and Sanananda in 1942 and 1943. Revealed are the very real and engaging experiences of Generals MacArthur and Blamey and other senior Australian commanders who sacrificed many of their senior field officers as scapegoats to protect their own positions, assisted in the making of false legends, and lied about the outcome of the men who fought the battles.

Mission Possible: The Wonderful Story of God and a Wyclife Translator in the Jungles of Papua New Guinea

Marilyn Laszlo, Luci Tumas

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Customer Reviews:
Total reviews: 7 Average rating: 4.5 of 5

THE NITTY GRITTY OF THE MISSION FIELD 5 out of 5 stars.
14 of 16 people found this review helpful.

This was a life changing book for me. I have been a Christian for a long time but only recently became interested in missionaries. This book describes so beautifully what happens when an ordinary person is called by God to take the gospel to people who have never heard it. This school teacher from Indiana answered the call to go to New Guinea (350 miles from the nearest radio contact) and learn a new language, then translate the entire New Testament into that language. It is a very personal account of her relationships, her struggles and the miracles that occurred while she was there. I will never again be able to put missionaries on the back burner after getting to know this woman. I'm giving this book to all my close friends at Christmas, I can't think of anyone who would not be fascinated by this journey.

Editorial Review:

The dynamic true story of Bible translator Marilyn Laszlo. Journey through the jungles of Papua New Guinea as she shares her adventures bringing the Word of God to the Sepik Iwam tribe.

Argonauts of the Western Pacific

Bronislaw Malinowski

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Total reviews: 2 Average rating: 4.5 of 5

A classic 4 out of 5 stars.
22 of 22 people found this review helpful.

This is a real classic in the history of anthropology, published in 1922, and unlike another classic from the same decade, Coming of Age in Samoa, it has worn well, too. This is where modern ethnography begins. Malinowski tells us how to do ethnography, in no uncertain terms, as he explains Trobriand kula expeditions. I found it to be a delightful read and I was continually amazed at the intellectual sophistication of his work, given its age. I believe I learned more about ethnography from this book than from any other I have ever read, and I have been a professional anthropologist for 30 years. It is, I must warn you, a long book, and I doubt that many will be willing to read it from stem to stern, but I think every anthropologist should study the introduction at least. It is perhaps the "sacred charter" for the ethnographic project, complete with felicitous phrases such as the "ethnographer's magic," "the imponderabilia of actual life," "the native's point of view," and "the hold life has." In addition, it is certainly essential reading for anyone interested in magic, because it is as much about magic as it is about kula exchange.

I assigned this book to a junior-level college class in ethnography, but they weren't as pleased with it as I was. Many of the students understood the importance of the book, but most also found it tedious, dull, repetitive, hard to follow, and definitely too long.

Editorial Review:

The founding document of economic anthropology! Bronislaw Malinowski, one of the all-time great anthropologists of the world, had a talent for bringing together in single comprehension the warm reality of human living with the cool abstractions of science. His pages have become an almost indispensable link between the knowing of exotic and remote people with theoretical knowledge about humankind. This volume--originally published in 1922--can be considered the founding document of economic anthropology, and remains the best one to read. It emphasizes the great significance of primitive economics by singling out the notable exchange system of the Trobriand Islands for special consideration. Although the main theme is economic, constant reference is made in this milestone of anthropological research and interpretation to social organization, life and meaning, the power of magic, and to mythology and folklore.

Darkest Hour: The True Story of Lark Force at Rabaul - Australia's Worst Military Disaster of World War II

Bruce Gamble

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Total reviews: 5 Average rating: 5.0 of 5

Editorial Review:

January 23, 1942, New Britain. It was 2:30 a.m., the darkest hour of the day and, for the defenders of this Southwest Pacific island, soon to be the war's darkest hour. Fifteen hundred men and six nurses, Lark Force, had been deployed to New Britain to fortify and defend Rabaul, capital of Australia's mandated territories. Once they'd completed their work on the strategic port and its two airfields, the group-mostly volunteers from Victoria-had settled into the routine of garrison duties, confident of being relieved within a year. But the Japanese had other ideas. Rabaul was the linchpin of their campaign to conquer the Southwest Pacific—and in the early hours of January 23 their invasion force swarmed ashore. What ensued is the story told in The Darkest Hour, a gut-wrenching account of courage and sacrifice, folly and disaster, as seen through the eyes of the few who survived. Bruce Gamble, the critically acclaimed author of Black Sheep One, follows key individuals—soldiers and junior officers, an American citizen and an Army nurse among them—through their experiences in Lark Force. Together their stories comprise a harrowing picture of the Australian forces overrun and driven into the jungle, prey to the unforgiving environment and a cruel enemy that massacred its prisoners—and tormented further by fate, when a Japanese ship transporting prisoners to Hainan Island was torpedoed by an American submarine. The dramatic stories of the Lark Force survivors, told here in full for the first time, are among the most inspiring of the Pacific War.

Sound and Sentiment: Birds, Weeping, Poetics, and Song in Kaluli Expression (Conduct and Communication)

Steven Feld

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Editorial Review:

Now in its second edition, Sound and Sentiment is an ethnographic study of sound as a cultural system--that is, a system of symbols--among the Kaluli people of Papua New Guinea. It shows how an analysis of modes and codes of sound communication leads to an understanding of life in Kaluli society. By studying the form and performance of weeping, poetics, and song in relation to the Kaluli natural and spiritual world, Steven Feld reveals Kaluli sound expressions as embodiments of deeply felt sentiments.

For this second edition the author has updated his original work with a new, innovative chapter that includes an interpretive review by its subjects, the Kaluli people themselves. He has also written a new preface and discography and revised the references section.

Arts of the Pacific Islands

Anne D'Alleva

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Editorial Review:

To the Westerner what culture seems more mysterious or exotic than Tahiti or Fiji? Yet, most of us know little about the arts and cultures of these islands. Mingling a deep appreciation for the beauty and variety of arts--sculpture, paintings, textiles, dance, jewelry, and architecture--found in these faraway islands with detailed knowledge of their traditions and meaning, Anne D'Alleva opens to us a beautiful world vibrantly alive.

Inalienable Possessions: The Paradox of Keeping-While Giving

Annette B. Weiner

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Editorial Review:

Inalienable Possessions tests anthropology's traditional assumptions about kinship, economics, power, and gender in an exciting challenge to accepted theories of reciprocity and marriage exchange. Focusing on Oceania societies from Polynesia to Papua New Guinea and including Australian Aborigine groups, Annette Weiner investigates the category of possessions that must not be given or, if they are circulated, must return finally to the giver. Reciprocity, she says, is only the superficial aspect of exchange, which overlays much more politically powerful strategies of "keeping-while-giving."
The idea of keeping-while-giving places women at the heart of the political process, however much that process may vary in different societies, for women possess a wealth of their own that gives them power. Power is intimately involved in cultural reproduction, and Weiner describes the location of power in each society, showing how the degree of control over the production and distribution of cloth wealth coincides with women's rank and the development of hierarchy in the community. Other inalienable possessions, whether material objects, landed property, ancestral myths, or sacred knowledge, bestow social identity and rank as well. Calling attention to their presence in Western history, Weiner points out that her formulations are not limited to Oceania. The paradox of keeping-while-giving is a concept certain to influence future developments in ethnography and the theoretical study of gender and exchange.

New Ireland: Ritual Arts of Oceania in the Collection of the Barbier-Mueller Museum

Michael Gunn

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Editorial Review:

For twenty years now the Barbier-Mueller Museum has mounted exhibitions that have travelled throughout Europe, North America and the Far East. To people everywhere the museum has presented its extensive collections of 'tribal' art, brought together over three quarters of a century by three generations of a single family.

These shows have been seen in some of the world's greatest art institutions, the Metropolitan Museum of New York, the Art Institute of Chicago, Boston's Museum of Fine Arts, the Los Angeles County Museum, and the Brooklyn Museum.

Generally there are no less than three exhibitions open to the public at any one time, each boasting a catalogue written by the most knowledgeable specialists in the field. This explains the museum's renown the world over, for it is indeed impossible today to mention 'tribal' art without immediately bringing the name Barbier-Mueller to mind.

For the first time ever forty pieces of sculpture from New Ireland, selected for their beauty, rarity, and originality, are being brought out of the museum's storerooms where they have been conserved-- several for over half a century-- and put on display in the galleries of Paris's Fondation Bismarck, a unique event that runs from 28 April to 28 June 1997. Most of these sculptures have quite a prestigious past moreover. The majority were originally acquired by museums in Dresden, Leipzig, Budapest, Vienna, Stuttgart, and Bremen at a very early date, sometime during the last quarter of the 19th century when New Ireland, along with other neighboring islands of the Bismarck Archipelago, and a substantial part of New Guinea, became a German colony. Unlike traditional tribal sculpture, largely limited to a number of conventional forms which native craftsmen have little choice but to respect, the masks and statues of New Ireland are striking for their freedom of invention. Animal and humanlike motifs are combined with infinite variety according to rules laid down by the rites employing such objects.

Dr. Michael Gunn, curator of the Metropolitan Museum's department of Oceania, offers a general presentation of the cultures found in New Ireland's different regions, before going on to explain the symbolism and function of each of the pieces featured here. Dr. Gunn is eminently qualified for this task, having undertaken several field trips in areas of New Ireland where traditional rites, especially those involved in funeral ceremonies, are still practised, albeit in a simplified or altered form. Yet along with the author's painstaking documentation, care has been taken to treat this exhibition catalogue like a true art book. Those eager to venture from the beaten track of art publications will be pleased to add this volume to their collection.