"Anthropologists and students of anthropology may read this book because it is a superior ethnography, detailed and enriched by theoretical insights. But at the heart of this book is a moral take, a simple but powerful story about an indigenous people who were wronged, who resisted for more than 100 years, and who may yet prevail. This message, ultimately, lends the book its true meaning and value."—William Rodman, Anthropologica

"A major contribution to the ethnography and history of Malaita and Melanesia, and to the growing literature on cultural resistance. But above all, his humane and painful analysis of the meeting of peoples living in different worlds and constructing their agendas and moralities on incommensurate—and apparently equally arbitrary—principles, represents a major contribution and challenge to anthropological thought, addressing the basic issue of what it is to be human."—Fredrik Barth

The Echo of Things is a compelling ethnographic study of what photography means to the people of Roviana Lagoon in the western Solomon Islands. Christopher Wright examines the contemporary uses of photography and expectations of the medium in Roviana, as well as people's reactions to photographs made by colonial powers in the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries. For Roviana people, photographs are unique objects; they are not reproducible, as they are in Euro-American understandings of the medium. Their status as singular objects contributes to their ability to channel ancestral power, and that ability is a key to understanding the links between photography, memory, and history in Roviana. Filled with the voices of Roviana people, The Echo of Things is both a nuanced study of the lives of photographs in a particular cultural setting and a provocative inquiry into our own understandings of photography.

On August 17, 1942, ten days after American marines had stormed Guadalcanal in the Solomon Islands, two U.S. submarines secretly delivered a small force from the newly formed 2nd Marine Raider Battalion to Japanese-occupied Makin Island one thousand miles to the north. The raid was intended to gather intelligence and divert attention from the main American attack to the south. News of the success of this special operation took hold of the American imagination and provided a much needed boost to morale. The battalion’s leader was Evans Carlson, a forty-six-year-old career marine office who had most recently served in China as a military observer. Carlson was also a friend of President Franklin D. Roosevelt and he had proposed to him the creation of a small elite raider force similar to the British Commandos. Having accompanied Chinese guerrillas in their war against Japan, Carlson incorporated some of their tactics into his raider training, including a method of esprit de corps called “gung ho,” a word still used today for loyal enthusiasm. Carlson’s raiders went on to conduct a lengthy operation behind enemy lines in Guadalcanal, contributing to the American victory. After months of exertion, Carlson fell ill and returned stateside. Despite his notoriety and willingness to return to the front, this decorated officer would never command again.
            In Evans Carlson, Marine Raider: The Man Who Commanded America’s First Special Forces, psychologist and acclaimed history writer Duane Schultz presents a fascinating and absorbing portrait of this complex officer. Son of a Congregational preacher, Carlson left home at an early age, and when he was just seventeen, the tall, lanky underage teenager bluffed his way into the army. He began his eventful military career against Pancho Villa, and continued through World War I and the unrest in Central America and in China. Despite Carlson’s personal bravery, loyalty, and long service, Schultz reveals that his active career was cut short by the Marine command who were envious of the attention he and his men received from the press and public; foreshadowing the paranoia of the McCarthy era, he was also rumored to be a communist. His raiders remained staunchly loyal to their former commander, and when he died in 1947, they ensured he would be buried in Arlington National Cemetery. Famed army and political cartoonist Bill Mauldin said, “There were only two brass hats whom ordinary GIs respected: Dwight Eisenhower and Evans Carlson.” This is Carlson’s story.

Chronicles the World War II experiences of the author
 
This book chronicles the World War II experiences of the author, who served as a Marine Corps pilot in the South Pacific. Colonel McEniry describes the organization and deployment of a Marine dive-bombing squadron (VMSB-132) in the early days of the war and follows the squadron through its actions in November and December of 1942.
 
The participation by the squadron in the naval battle of Guadalcanal, November 12-15, 1942, is related in detail and includes the personal experiences of the author on several bombing missions. This battle, described by Admiral Ernest J. King, the Chief of Naval Operations, as “the fiercest naval battle ever fought,” resulted in the loss by the Japanese of two battleships, ten transport ships, and numerous cruisers and destroyers.