With this volume the World Bibliographical Series has now produced four volumes covering the island countries of the Pacific. A 1987 volume covered the entire region (Pacific Basin and Oceania), and there have been country volumes on Papua New Guinea (1988) and Fiji (1994). Samoa was perhaps the next logical choice, as there has been extensive publishing on the Samoan Islands as geographic and cultural entities, and on the developments ‐ political, social and economic ‐ of its constituent parts, the independent country of Western Samoa and the American territory of American Samoa. This volume also includes publications by and about “Samoans abroad”, the author noting that “Samoans constitute a global community with many thousands at home in California, Fiji, Hawaii, New Zealand and Washington”.
H.G.A. Hughes is a well known name in the field of Pacific bibliography, and his personal interests clearly coincide nicely with the aims of the World Bibliographical Series ‐ to provide an “interpretation of each country that will express its culture, its place in the world, and the qualities and background that make it unique”. This the volume does through annotated listings of publications about the country which will allow the reader ‐ whether student, researcher or acquisitions librarian ‐ to get a feel for the historical and contemporary publishing output on Samoa and thus of the interests, discussions and debates which have influenced the study of Samoan life and culture.
The majority of entries come from academic books and articles, although there are a number of entries from official and semi‐official national, regional and international bodies. The official material does give an idea of the range of such publications on Samoa and the Pacific more generally and would be useful for acquisitions work. There is an emphasis on recently published work, with publications from the 1990s well represented.
Material is arranged in broad categories (geography, language, politics), some being standard to the World Bibliographical Series, and some devised to reflect the nature of the publishing output on Samoa. There are thus, for example, sections on Robert Louis Stevenson and on the Mead Controversy. Under the broad subject categories are listed Pacific regional works which include Samoa (with annotations noting the Samoan content), followed by those works exclusively on Samoa. This format is useful for someone approaching Pacific bibliography for the first time, although the regional sources will be familiar to Pacific specialists. The broad categories mean that items are not always listed where expected, but there are indexes for authors and titles, and a very helpful subject index. The sub‐arrangement in some categories is idiosyncratic but again seems devised to fit the publishing output. Overall this seems fairer to the existing literature than trying to fit the material into more standardised categories.
The annotations are descriptive (indicating scope and/or theme or argument) and evaluative, often noting the relevance of particular items and/or authors to Samoan studies. Material is compared and references made to other supporting or contrasting works. The annotations are more critical and evaluative in some categories than others, and particularly so in the social science sections (such as anthropology and history) ‐ reflecting both the author’s subject specialisations and the importance of this literature to Samoan studies. With so many informative (and entertaining) annotations it is perhaps unfair to quibble about the lack of annotations for the theses section of the volume. However, this is an area where annotated entries would have been particularly useful, especially for titles not included in the Dissertation Abstracts database.
The author gives generous credit to his sources and provides indications of sources of supply which would be useful for acquisitions work. His acknowledgments include a veritable who’s who of Pacific bibliography. As he notes, these kinds of bibliographies are the product of long years of interest in a subject area. With this volume the reader is privileged to share that interest and knowledge.
