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This chapter provides biographical information about James A. Michener’s involvement in, and writing about, World War II in the Pacific as well as an analysis of Tales of the South Pacific, the source for the characters and situations in Rodgers and Hammerstein’s musical. After noting the source of the name Bali Ha’i and the book’s unusual palindromic structure, the chapter discusses Michener’s thematic and narrative techniques, paying careful attention to his discussions of race and racial intolerance among servicemen and women in the Pacific theater. Finally, the chapter provides information drawn from Hammerstein’s notes on the book, found among his papers in the Library of Congress and thus far undiscussed in the literature on Hammerstein or South Pacific. These notes provide insight into Hammerstein’s earliest thoughts concerning the adaptation of Michener’s Pulitzer Prize–winning book. The chapter also introduces co-author and director Joshua Logan.

After discussing postwar feminism and concepts of gender, this chapter focuses on Hammerstein’s alteration of gender representations from Michener’s novel. The exploration of Nellie, whose characterization signals a change in Rodgers and Hammerstein’s female characters, reveals a musical connection between her and de Becque that contradicts most readings of her character, which suggest that she defers to him and gives up her identity to become his dependent. Close study of the score demonstrates otherwise, and this chapter provides a reading of Nellie that equates her emotional status with de Becque’s. Drawing on recent work in the field of men’s studies, the subsequent examination of de Becque and Cable, reveals that Hammerstein altered their masculinity, feminizing Cable and turning de Becque into an American warrior by sending him on a suicidal mission and having him return in full military regalia. After this establishment of his masculine credentials, de Becque joins Nellie in the musical’s iconic final image, which suggests the postwar nuclear family. This chapter also considers Joshua Logan’s representation of the male body in this and other works for the stage.

From its opening scene, South Pacific presents problematic images of colonialism that indicate a Western cultural hegemony over the indigenous island peoples and suggests the subsequent influence of postwar capitalism in the region. The character of Bloody Mary simultaneously represents an attempt at assimilation and a carefully enforced outsider status. Although her economic acumen gives Mary a degree of power within the imposed culture, her ethnic difference prevents her assimilation into it. This friction plays an important role in the subplot of Mary, her daughter, and Joe Cable, who cannot reconcile himself to loving an Other. Further, this chapter examines Nellie’s presence at the end of the play as an indicator of the increased postwar American presence in the South Pacific and reinforces a discussion of Nellie as an autonomous character with more power, cultural as well as emotional, than she is generally credited for. The chapter concludes with a discussion of the cultural power of popular song and how popular song topics pervade the musical.

This introductory chapter considers the 2008 Broadway revival of South Pacific (created by Richard Rodgers and Oscar Hammerstein II). The enthusiastic reception of this production suggests the show’s unabated ability to entertain as well as its continued relevance to problematic issues in American culture. Further, this production has reinstated much material cut from the original production before it opened in 1949 and thus provides an example of a musical as an “open text,” or a text that has changing content and meaning due to its not having a definitive version. This in turn invites consideration of earlier forms of the show during its developmental period and in subsequent productions, and it supports the investigation of drafts and sketches for the show that were rejected for various reasons. After stating the purpose of the book, which is to investigate the musical’s thematic concerns and how they were developed or altered, the chapter concludes with a summary of subsequent chapters.

After a preliminary discussion of race and World War II that draws from historian Micahel Bess’s work on the subject, this chapter demonstrates how Hammerstein repeatedly subdued South Pacific’s criticism of prejudice throughout the creative process. Beginning with an examination of Nellie Forbush and what her background in 1930s prewar rural Arkansas would have been, the chapter moves on to reveal how Hammerstein retained her prejudice while making it increasingly less abrasive than it was in James A. Michener’s Tales of the South Pacific. Attention is then shifted to Joe Cable, whose grappling with prejudice provides the musical’s tragic subplot. Act 2, scene 4, the musical’s climactic scene, is analyzed in its many manifestations indicated by the numerous drafts and sketch studies for it found among Hammerstein’s papers. While some representations of race in the musical remain problematic—references to the Japanese enemy and the characterization of island women, for example—this chapter demonstrates Hammerstein’s ongoing commitment to racial equality and tolerance that anticipate the American civil rights movement.

This chapter is concerned with drafts and sketches involving two principal characters in Tales of the South Pacific that eventually were reduced to bit roles in South Pacific. After discussing the importance of Harbison and Nurse Culbert in Michener’s novel and Hammerstein’s initial interest in them, this chapter traces their gradual excision from the script. For Culbert, this process also involved major changes in two of the show’s best known numbers—“I’m Gonna Wash That Man Right Out-a My Hair” and “I’m in Love with a Wonderful Guy”—and the elimination of a subplot connecting Culbert with the comic character Luther Billis. The examination of Harbison includes a detailed analysis of a long but eventually discarded draft for act 1, scene 1, in which Hammerstein created a satire of the postwar young white collar executive that recalls the postwar writings of C. Wright Mills, William H. Whyte Jr., and David Riesman; the draft also contains a full set of lyrics for which no music is extant.

This concluding chapter features a discussion of productions of South Pacific subsequent to the original Broadway run. Several of the productions, including a national tour starring Erin Dilly and Michael Nouri that was in rehearsal during the events of 9/11, reveal aspects of the show previously unobserved, and the latest revival, which Bartlett Sher directed for Lincoln Center and which is the first Broadway production since the original, is extremely relevant to current events. The chapter concludes with an assessment of South Pacific as a musical from its era and as an ongoing cultural document that continues to shed light on issues of race, gender, and foreign relations in postwar American culture.

This chapter examines the theoretical bases that may be used to support the formal recognition of customary law, and to illustrate why it should be acknowledged as an important source of law in the legally pluralist post-colonial societies of the South Pacific. It shows that the recognition of customary law in the postcolonial societies of the South Pacific finds theoretical support in the concept of legal pluralism, principles of human and indigenous rights, and also environmental justice. However, there is little doubt that customary law has been eroded by colonization, and faces a modern challenge in globalization and its renewed interest in uniformity and homogenization. Conversely, the globalization of law, and more importantly, local responses to it, can offer an opportunity to access a broader landscape of laws leading to adaptation, transformation, and new forms of governance. Older forms of law and regulation can be resurrected, reinvigorated, and reinvented in order to achieve contemporary goals and address current issues. This transformative process can be started from above but must also be locally driven from below.

Rodgers and Hammerstein brought liberal sensibilities to work and life from the 1930s through the late 1940s. Although Rodgers was perceived as less political than Hammerstein, the 1932 film The Phantom President, written with Lorenz Hart, was a satire about a presidential election, and their stage hit Babes in Arms (1937) endorsed Jewish liberalism. Hammerstein’s liberal leanings were present in his life and his art: from his early days in Hollywood, Hammerstein was involved with the Anti-Nazi League, which drew the attention of the House Un-American Activities Committee, and during World War II, he was a member of the Writers’ War Board, a group that was responsible for the American Red Cross ending its practice of segregating blood by race. While South Pacific was the most politically charged of their collaborations, works such as The King and I nonetheless reflect the duo’s beliefs in world harmony and cultural exchange.

The largest medical program supported by Cuba outside Latin America is found in tiny Timor-Leste (East Timor), a country devastated by civil war, and with only a few dozen physicians. At the request of the Timorese government Cuba sent hundreds of physicians to this impoverished country, and also trained 1,000 Timorese to become doctors. Now it has established a medical faculty in the capital, and is training students from many of the small islands of the South Pacific. The evolution of the Cuban role and the impact that it has had are the focus of this chapter.

Visions of a Christian society in the South Pacific varied within Protestantism, as well as between Protestants and Roman Catholics. Some settlers argued for a secular society, as distinct from one without religious tests or an established church. Primary education was the main area of disagreement, with secular systems established in most colonies by the 1870s, leaving Roman Catholics and Lutherans to finance their own schools. Pressures for political and religious cooperation were strong, leading to Methodist and Presbyterian unions and federation of the Australian colonies. Land wars in New Zealand and New Caledonia left a bitter legacy.

New volcanic islands may be colonized from neighboring islands rather than from distant continents. The source islands may subsequently erode and subside, and eventually form atolls or submerged seamounts. Island taxa persist more or less in situ as dynamic metapopulations on individually ephemeral islands. These metapopulations may evolve by vicariance during rifting and basin formation, as in continental groups. In the Pacific, phases of Cretaceous volcanism associated with the South Pacific superswell have produced large igneous plateaus. Some of these include fossil wood in sedimentary strata intercalated with the volcanics. This chapter examines clades that are widely distributed in the central Pacific and endemic there, and relates these to the complex geological history.

After the British Isles, the most important source of overseas emigrants within the nineteenth century British Empire was British India. In addition, substantial numbers of Africans, Chinese, and Pacific Islanders entered various parts of the Empire. Most Asian, African, and Pacific immigrants were recruited on long-term labour contracts. Tropical emigrants had much in common with emigrants from Britain in their aspirations, mode of transport, and permanent settlement abroad. The differences in the destinations and status of the two groups were due as much to Imperial policy as to inherent circumstances. Tropical labour migration arose to meet slavery's decline.

Begins by reviewing the chronological proliferation, literary elaboration, and theological differentiation of the genre of conversion narrative over the course of the eighteenth century in England. In order to see the genre whole, however, and to appreciate the conditions in general under which people turned to this form of spiritual autobiography, the chapter turns to examine first the ways in which the genre fared at the end of the eighteenth century in the context of evangelical mission enterprise beyond the borders of Christendom, and, second, at the ways in which the genre contrasted with the new forms of modern autobiography in England that appeared ‘after Christendom’. The non-Western case studies include David Brainerd’s mission to the Delaware Indians in New Jersey, the conversion of David George and others associated with the Sierra Leone Colony, and the conversion of South Sea Islanders at the turn of the century. Then, finally, the unconversion and re-conversion of the English entrepreneur James Lackington illustrates both the conditions of narratable evangelical conversion in general and the ways in which the evangelical experience moderated and revised modern ideals of individuality associated with the Enlightenment.

Amphibious warfare was critical to the success of Allied forces in the South West Pacific Area (SWPA) during the Pacific War. However, at the beginning of the war both the Australian and United States forces in the SWPA had little knowledge, expertise, or experience in this form of warfare. This chapter by Peter J. Dean traces the development of amphibious warfare in the SWPA through organization, training, tactics, doctrine, and operations. While focusing on the Australian experience and highlighting the evolution of capabilities between 1942-45 through an analysis of the assaults on Lae (1943) and Balikpapan (1945), it contextualizes this experience within General Douglas MacArthur's maritime strategy and the friction inherent in combined amphibious operations in this theater. The chapter highlights the evolution of the Australian Army from a force almost totally unfamiliar with the practice of amphibious operations to one which, in combination with its United States coalition partner, becomes a practitioner par excellence in this form of warfare.

This chapter focuses on the 1955 Pan-Pacific Women's Conference held in Manila, Philippines. As in previous years, organizers sought to encourage that the viewpoints of non-Western women be heard. Concerns expressed in this regard saw women ascribed in what would today be considered broadly ethnic commonalities, given that the Pacific region was, in the postwar era, increasingly conceived as a series of subregions home to separate cultural/racial types and to concomitant degrees of advancement. Responding to these massive changes, by the end of the two-week conference the Pan-Pacific Women's Association had taken the momentous step of changing its name to the Pan-Pacific and South East Asia Women's Association (PPSEAWA). The chapter also discusses how conference was marred by the specter of communist sympathy; how race politics were intimately interlaced with the cultural internationalism of the PPSEAWA; and the multiplicity of politics possible under interwar government surveillance and even during the Cold War.

Chapters 2–6 survey the political and socioeconomic forces underlying the global sustainability crisis. Understanding the scale and depth of contemporary forces of capitalism and consumerism requires a close look at the consequences of imperialism and colonialism on patterns of violence and exploitation. This chapter begins this process of understanding by sketching the history of ecological imperialism after 1600, seeing this as a reasonable starting date for the beginning of what many scholars are now calling the Anthropocene Epoch (or the age of humans, replacing the geologic epoch of the Holocene beginning 12,000 years ago). It opens with Captain Pedro Fernandes de Queirós’s voyage across the Pacific Ocean in 1605–06 to “discover” modern-day Vanuatu, before turning to look more globally at the devastation of imperialism – and later colonialism – for the South Pacific, the Americas, Africa, and Asia. Over this time conquerors enslaved and murdered large numbers of indigenous people; cataclysmic change came as well, however, from the introduction of European diseases, plants, and animals. This chapter’s survey of imperialism, colonialism, and globalization sets the stage for Chapter 3, which explores the devastating history of the South Pacific island of Nauru after 1798.

This chapter presents a case study of the Pacific Islands Forum (PIF). It examines why the PIF has never established an international parliamentary institution (IPI) in spite of several favourable conditions, such as an increase in authority, a large scope, predominantly democratic member states, a legitimacy crisis in regional governance, and improving conditions for international diffusion. The explanation points to the absence of and contestation about general purpose. Small and recently independent island states blocked region building and occasional IPI proposals by dominant member states (Australia and New Zealand) to protect their sovereignty. The analysis is subdivided into two cases, the 1971–2000 period of initial institutionalization and the period from 2000 onwards during which the Forum experienced deepening integration together with a severe legitimacy crisis.