Between the 1870s and the 1930s competing European powers carved out and consolidated colonies in Melanesia, the most culturally diverse region of the world. As part of this process, great assemblages of ethnographic artefacts were made by a range of collectors whose diversity is captured in this volume. The contributors to this tightly-integrated volume take these collectors, and the collecting institutions, as the departure point for accounts that look back at the artefact-producing societies and their interaction with the collectors, but also forward to the fate of the collections in metropolitan museums, as the artefacts have been variously exhibited, neglected, re-conceived as indigenous heritage, or repatriated. In doing this, the contributors raise issues of current interest in anthropology, Pacific history, art history, museology, and material culture.

." . . a most welcome book . . . Reading this book should irrevocably change how one looks at an ethnographic exhibit . . . These wide-ranging articles . . . augment our understanding of museums and their objects . . . Overall, this is a rich collection of essays, brimming with data and, for the most part, cogently analysed." . JRAI Between the 1870s and the 1930s competing European powers carved out and consolidated colonies in Melanesia, the most culturally diverse region of the world. As part of this process, great assemblages of ethnographic artefacts were made by a range of collectors whose diversity is captured in this volume. The contributors to this tightly-integrated volume take these collectors, and the collecting institutions, as the departure point for accounts that look back at the artefact-producing societies and their interaction with the collectors, but also forward to the fate of the collections in metropolitan museums, as the artefacts have been variously exhibited, neglected, re-conceived as indigenous heritage, or repatriated. In doing this, the contributors raise issues of current interest in anthropology, Pacific history, art history, museology, and material culture. Michael O'Hanlon is Director of the Pitt Rivers Museum, University of Oxford. Robert L. Welsch teaches at the Department of Anthropology, Dartmouth, New Hampshire."

An informed modern plan for post-2020 American foreign policy that avoids the opposing dangers of retrenchment and overextension "A masterful examination of past American grand strategy and foreign policies. A compelling, thoughtful, and thought-provoking proposal of a new grand strategy by one of America's foremost writers and thinkers on U.S. defense, foreign policy, and geopolitics." -General David Petraeus, U.S. Army (Ret.) Russia and China are both believed to have "grand strategies"-detailed sets of national security goals backed by means, and plans, to pursue them. In the United States, policymakers have tried to articulate similar concepts but have failed to reach a widespread consensus since the Cold War ended. While the United States has been the world's prominent superpower for over a generation, much American thinking has oscillated between the extremes of isolationist agendas versus interventionist and overly assertive ones. Drawing on historical precedents and weighing issues such as Russia's resurgence, China's great rise, North Korea's nuclear machinations, and Middle East turmoil, Michael O'Hanlon presents a well-researched, ethically sound, and politically viable vision for American national security policy. He also proposes complementing the Pentagon's set of "4+1" pre-existing threats with a new "4+1": biological, nuclear, digital, climatic, and internal dangers.

An informed modern plan for post-2020 American foreign policy that avoids the opposing dangers of retrenchment and overextension “A masterful examination of past American grand strategy and foreign policies. A compelling, thoughtful, and thought-provoking proposal of a new grand strategy by one of America’s foremost writers and thinkers on U.S. defense, foreign policy, and geopolitics.� —General David Petraeus, U.S. Army (Ret.) Russia and China are both believed to have “grand strategies�—detailed sets of national security goals backed by means, and plans, to pursue them. In the United States, policymakers have tried to articulate similar concepts but have failed to reach a widespread consensus since the Cold War ended. While the United States has been the world’s prominent superpower for over a generation, much American thinking has oscillated between the extremes of isolationist agendas versus interventionist and overly assertive ones.     Drawing on historical precedents and weighing issues such as Russia’s resurgence, China’s great rise, North Korea’s nuclear machinations, and Middle East turmoil, Michael O’Hanlon presents a well‑researched, ethically sound, and politically viable vision for American national security policy. He also proposes complementing the Pentagon’s set of “4+1� pre‑existing threats with a new “4+1�: biological, nuclear, digital, climatic, and internal dangers.

The tragic conclusion to the war in Afghanistan - America's longest and one of its most frustrating - serves as a reminder that the United States too often is at war, and sometimes fails to achieve its short-term or long-term aims. In this timely book, esteemed military expert Michael O'Hanlon examines America's major conflicts since the mid-1800s: the Civil War, the two World Wars, Korea, Vietnam, Iraq, and Afghanistan. In this new, concise book, he addresses profound questions. How successful has the United States been when it waged these wars? Were the wars avoidable? Did America's leaders know what they were getting into when they committed to war? And what lessons does history offer for future leaders contemplating war -including the prospects for avoiding war in the first place. The book does not tell stories at the ground level -the day-to-day tactics and human bravery and perseverance that since ancient times have made warfare so tragically fascinating. Instead, the book presents America's major wars on a conceptual level, focusing on strategies, key decisions, innovative technologies and the dynamics that shaped their outcomes. O'Hanlon looks for overarching trends and themes, along with the lessons for the military strategists and political leaders of today and tomorrow. O'Hanlon's unique book - combining brevity and clarity with a broad conceptual approach -is an important one for students of security studies at universities and war colleges as well as generalist policymakers.

This collection examines the theory, practice, and application of state neutrality in international relations. With a focus on its modern-day applications, the studies in this volume analyze the global implications of permanent neutrality for Taiwan, Russia, Ukraine, the European Union, and the United States. Exploring permanent neutrality's role as a realist security model capable of rivaling collective security, the authors argue that permanent neutrality has the potential to decrease major security dilemmas on the global stage.

Drawing on ethnographic case studies from Amazonia, Indonesia, Africa, Melanesia and Polynesia, this text shows how bodily presentation plays a fundamental role in contemporary identity politics in tension with encompassing national and global stereotypes, which may in turn both constrain and empower local traditions.

What happens to body arts when these aesthetic practices assume fresh significance in the context of modernity? In many parts of the indigenous world, the realm of body arts has become an arena for innovation, debate, revival and repression under the conditions of modernity. Among some groups, formerly suppressed 'traditions' of body arts have recently been revived. Elsewhere, body arts have been the means for creating or renovating identities in response to a developing international tourist market and in the light of novel technologies of representation, such as photography and film. The contributions to this volume draw together ideas emerging from the anthropology of the body, the western interest in body ornamentation of the 'Other', and the recent revival of specific body arts such as tattooing and piercing. Drawing on ethnographic case studies from Amazonia, Indonesia, Africa, Melanesia and Polynesia, this volume shows how bodily presentation plays a fundamental role in contemporary identity politics in tension with encompassing national and global stereotypes, which may in turn both constrain and empower local traditions.

This volume offers original new anthropological perspectives on landscape, a topic of emerging interest not only for anthropologists but also for geographers, art historians, and archaeologists. It is proposed that landscape be conceptualized as a cultural process, one situated between "place" and "space". An art historian and nine noted anthropologists exemplify this perspective, drawing on various case studies from around the world, taking in modern and traditional societies in the present and the past.

This study begins with a set of strategic assumptions--most notably that the risks of U.S.-Russian war are and will remain extremely low and that the U.S. military remains a stabilizing influence in many geographic theaters. O'Hanlon then shows that the United States' interests in the Third World, while nowhere truly vital, are sufficiently important to justify a measured degree of global military presence and engagement. Historical, political, and military analysis suggests that these interests can be protected efficiently and effectively with a U.S. military reduced in size by roughly 40 to 50 percent in most types of major combat forces, and by 95 percent in nuclear forces. In the realm of conventional forces, these cuts would be about twice as deep as those planned by Secretary of Defense Richard Cheney; in the nuclear realm they would be much deeper than those approved by the Bush administration. By contrast, analysis suggests that U.S. capabilities should be largely held constant--or in some cases even expanded--in logistics, intelligence and communications, R&D, and special forces. The resulting force posture would cost about $200 billion in 1991 dollars through the early years of the next century, and perhaps $230 billion annually thereafter. O'Hanlon's is one of the first in-depth studies of how the U.S. military might be reconfigured for the post-Cold War world. This study will prove useful for defense policy makers at the specialized levels and for students of the guns vs. butter policy issues and debates.

This collection examines the theory, practice, and application of state neutrality in international relations. With a focus on its modern-day applications, the studies in this volume analyze the global implications of permanent neutrality for Taiwan, Russia, Ukraine, the European Union, and the United States. Exploring permanent neutrality's role as a realist security model capable of rivaling collective security, the authors argue that permanent neutrality has the potential to decrease major security dilemmas on the global stage.