Description
Book SynopsisThe Japanese annexed the archipelago of Palau in 1914. The airbase built on Peleliu Island became a target for attack by the US in World War II. This book offers an ethnographic study of how Palau and Peleliu were transformed by warring powers and explores how their conflict is remembered differently by the three peoples who shared the experience.
Trade ReviewStephen Murray has written a remarkably sensitive, insightful, and compassionate book about a war that continues. While Japanese forces surrendered the island of Peleliu in what is now the Republic of Palau to American invaders on 24 November 1944, the battle goes on around issues of memory, commemoration, and the meaning of history. To his great credit, Stephen Murray has done much to redress the imbalance and injustice." -
The Contemporary Pacific"
The Battle over Peleliu is an important contribution to Pacific history, because it considers the significant voices, experiences and memories of the Islanders in their view of the battle for Peleliu as 'an unmitigated social, cultural, and environmental diaster'" -
The Journal of Pacific History"In the field of Pacific Island ethnography, and more particularly studies of Palauan society, culture, and history, this book has no equal. Murray's focus on the people of the island of Peleliu and their relationship to the bloody battle which took place there in 1944 is particularly illuminating. Also noteworthy are his very lucid sketch of Palauan social structure and his astute analysis of the differential impact of Japanese and US colonialism on that social structure." - Peter W. Black, coauthor
Conflict Resolution: Cross-Cultural Perspectives"Among the book manuscripts I have had the honor to review, no other has impressed, inspired, and touched me as deeply as this one. For those of us trying hard to expand world history to include a focus on the Pacific, this book will be a welcome aid to refocus students' geographical perceptions of history and challenge received wisdom. Murray's story is at once academically grounded, intellectually integer, practically informed, and personally engaged-a combination that cannot fail to attract considerable attention." - Franziska Seraphim, author of
War, Memory, and Social Politics in Japan, 1945-2005Table of Contents
- List of Illustrations
- Acknowledgments
- Introduction
- Part I. Palauan and Colonial Landscapes
- Chapter 1 History, Memory, and Island Landscapes
- Chapter 2 Colonial Masters and Island Society
- Part II. Peace, War, and a New Empire
- Chapter 3 Smiling Sky, Gathering Clouds
- Chapter 4 War
- Chapter 5 Exile, Fear, and Hunger: Ngaraard, Babeldaob, 1944-1945
- Chapter 6 An Island Desolated, a Trust Betrayed, 1946-1994
- Part III. Pursuing Memory
- Chapter 7 Retrieving the Dead
- Chapter 8 Remembering a Painful Victory
- Chapter 9 Parallel Histories: Three Peoples' Memories of War and Loss
- Conclusion: The Roots of the Plant
- Notes
- Glossary
- Bibliography
- Index
