An encyclopaedia of information on major aspects of Pacific life, including the physical environment, peoples, history, politics, economy, society and culture. The CD-ROM contains hyperlinks between section titles and sections, a library of all the maps in the encyclopaedia, and a photo library.

"A spectacular transition is under way in the Pacific Islands, as a result of which all our lives will be radically different. In the last fifty years or so, Asia has begun to play a bigger and bigger role in all aspects of Islands life - migration, trade and investment, aid and development, information and media, religion, culture and sport. It is replacing the West. The process is irreversible. With his trademark breadth and depth of knowledge and understanding of the region, based on over half a century of experience, study and deliberation, Ron Crocombe documents the early connections between Asia and the Pacific, details recent and continuing changes, and poses challenging theories about the future."--Publisher.

Written by an international team of distinguished scholars, this comprehensive book introduces students to the fundamental historical, systematic, moral and ecclesiological aspects of the study of the church, as well as serving as a resource for scholars engaging in ecclesiological debates on a wide variety of issues.

"The world's most powerful nation, and more than a dozen of the world's smallest, have been interacting for 200 years. Beginning with whaling in the 1700's, it has continued through many trades, investment, eduction, churches, media, diplomacy and strategic issues. As significant as the movement of Americans to the Pacific is that of 150,000 Pacific Islanders to the USA. This important book documents the growing interaction with the USA to the pinnacle of involvement in World War II. The importance of USA to the Pacific Islands remained high until the end of the 1980's but has declined since then on almost every dimension. While USA will remain significant for the Pacific Islands, its relative profile will continue to decline." -- Back cover.

Since its origins in late eighteenth-century European thought, the idea of placing a regional frame around the Pacific islands has never been just an exercise in geographical mapping. This framing has always been a political exercise. Contending regional projects and visions have been part of a political struggle concerning how Pacific islanders should live their lives. Framing the Islands tells the story of this political struggle and its impact on the regional governance of key issues for the Pacific such as regional development, resource management, security, cultural identity, political agency, climate change and nuclear involvement. It tells this story in the context of a changing world order since the colonial period and of changing politics within the post-colonial states of the Pacific. Framing the Islands argues that Pacific regionalism has been politically significant for Pacific island states and societies. It demonstrates the power associated with the regional arena as a valued site for the negotiation of global ideas and processes around development, security and climate change. It also demonstrates the political significance associated with the role of Pacific regionalism as a diplomatic bloc in global affairs, and as a producer of powerful policy norms attached to funded programs. This study also challenges the expectation that Pacific regionalism largely serves hegemonic powers and that small islands states have little diplomatic agency in these contests. Pacific islanders have successfully promoted their own powerful normative framings of Oceania in the face of the attempted hegemonic impositions from outside the region; seen, for example, in the strong commitment to the ‘Blue Pacific continent’ framing as a guiding ideology for the policy work of the Pacific Islands Forum in the face of pressures to become part of Washington’s Indo-Pacific strategy.