The book “Archaeology of Pacific Oceania: Inhabiting a Sea of Islands,” written by University of Guam faculty member Michael T. Carson, was selected for a 2018 “Outstanding Academic Title” award by Choice, a publishing unit of the Association of College & Research Libraries and a leading evaluator of nonfiction academic writing. The distinction is given to 10% of the 6,000 titles that Choice reviews each year.

“Choice is a premiere journal for library science,” said Monique C. Storie, dean of University Libraries at UOG. “Academic librarians routinely use it for book selection.”

Books are selected for the award based on excellence of presentation and scholarship, importance to other literature in the field, originality, and value to undergraduate students and to undergraduate library collections.

Carson, an associate professor of archaeology, has archaeological expertise from nearly three decades of work in the region, which allowed him to write a comprehensive analysis in chronological order.

In his review, Choice Editor Richard Scaglion remarked that Carson is “one of the few archaeologists with the range of experience, depth of knowledge, and broad comparative perspective to produce such a book.”

The book uses physical evidence to study how ancient peoples came to inhabit Pacific Island regions and how they lived and adapted to societal, ecological, and demographic factors. The book then explores how knowledge of these societies can be applied to the study of significant issues in human-environment relations on a global scale.

Carson said he believes his work will “bring the Pacific Oceania region strongly into international discussions of archaeology” and provide its modern readers with a fresh look at understanding their place and interactions in the world.

The text, published by Routledge in its Routledge World Archaeology series, is organized into 14 chapters, making it suitable for students to read throughout a traditional semester course.

Copies of the book are available at the Micronesian Area Research Center and the RFK Library on the UOG campus. It also available for sale at Routledge.com or on Amazon.

About Choice

Choice is a publishing unit at the Association of College & Research Libraries, a division of the American Library Association. Together, Choice and the ACRL provide professional development tools for librarianship. Choice has been the acknowledged leader in the provision of objective, high-quality evaluations of nonfiction academic writing. Its flagship publication, “Choice Reviews” (www.choicereviews.org), publishes some 5,000 reviews annually. Choice Reviews and its print companion, Choice, are invaluable sources of bibliographic reference and recommendation for both collection development and individual research.