Watriama and Co (the title echoes Kipling's Stalky and Co!) is a collection of biographical essays about people associated with the Pacific Islands. It covers a period of almost a century and a half. However, the individual stories of first-hand experience converge to some extent in various ways so as to present a broadly coherent picture of'Pacific History'. In this, politics, economics and religion overlap. So, too, do indigenous cultures and concerns; together with the activities and interests of the Europeans who ventured into the Pacific and who had a profound, widespread and enduring impact there from the nineteenth century, and who also prompted reactions from the Island peoples. Not least significant in this process is the fact that the Europeans generated a ‘paper trail'through which their stories and those of the Islanders (who also contributed to their written record) can be known. Thus, not only are the subjects of the essays to be encountered personally, and within a contextual kinship, but the way in which the past has shaped the future is clearly discernible. Watriama himself features in various historical narratives. So, too, certain of his confrères in this collection, which is the product of several decades of exploring the Pacific past in archives, by sea, and on foot through most of Oceania.

Even as interest in the powerful, often tragic history of Native America grows, many books continue to perpetuate long-standing misconceptions of the past as well as the romantic stereotypes often popularized today. Readers can now rely on Encyclopedia of North American Indians for an authentic and often surprising portrait of the complexities of the Native American experience. Written by more than 260 contemporary authorities, the volume features many Native American contributors - including eminent writers, tribal elders, scholars, and activists - with voices as distinct as their subjects, offering a deeper and more informed appreciation of American Indian life, past and present. Illustrated with many rare photographs, the Encyclopedia features articles on subjects such as mound builders, reservations, cigar-store Indians, child rearing, powwows, boarding schools, museums and collectors, dreams, the occupation of Alcatraz, and the impact of American Indian civilizations on Europe and the world. Contemporary topics include gambling, sports mascots, alcoholism, urban Indians, and the status of women. Biographies illuminate not only famous chiefs and warriors but an enormously diverse group of historical figures, such as Pauline Johnson, a Mohawk who became the first American Indian woman to publish poetry; Charles Curtis, a Kaw Indian who served as vice president under Herbert Hoover; and'Chief'Bender, an Ojibwa who played and coached professional baseball and is lauded in the Baseball Hall of Fame. Covering Arctic to southeastern peoples, separate articles on more than one hundred major tribes - from Abenaki to Zuni - discuss community origins, rituals and beliefs, social organization, and present-day life.