Don A. Farrell
Tinian and the Bomb chronicles the important and often overlooked role Tinian in the Mariana Islands played in the atomic bombing of Japan at the end of World War II. As part of the Manhattan Project, Project Alberta and Operation Centerboard, Tinian was integral in the plan to drop atomic bombs on Japan. The book captures this history as gathered from documents and images held in the National Archives, Record Group 77. The book documents how the Army Corps of Engineers, guided by the Los Alamos Laboratory in cooperation with the US Army Air Forces and the US Navy and its Seabees, constructed facilitates on Tinian capable of assembling and delivering as many atomic bombs as necessary to bring WWII to a successful end without an invasion of the Japanese home islands. As predicted, two atomic bombs, one uranium and one plutonium, were launched from Tinian and dropped in rapid succession, resulting in the unconditional surrender of Japanese military forces. This prevented the political partition of Japan (as happened with Korea and Germany) and led to the US-Japan security alliance that remains the cornerstone of peace in the Pacific today.
Luis de Morales, S.J. & Charles Le Gobien, S.J. Edited and commented by: Alexandre Coello de la Rosa
Histoire des isles Marianes (History of the Mariana Islands), written in Paris in 1700, provides a detailed glimpse into a tumultuous and critically significant period in the history of the Mariana Islands and the Chamorro people – the period commonly referred to as the Spanish-Chamorro Wars.
Francisco Olive y Garcia, Translated and Annotated by: Marjorie G. Driver
This report written by Governor Francisco Olive contains his insights about the social, political, and economic conditions of the Marianas. He focuses on the underdevelopment of the islands and draws the Spanish Government to look back at the colony’s history, specifically the second half of the 19th century. The report reflects the colonial mentality of Olive, who stresses the responsibility of the Spanish Government to the inhabitants of the Marianas, leaving unchallenged the right of Spain to maintain its sovereignty over the islands.
Mary L. Spencer
Children of Chuuk Lagoon examines the everyday lives of school-aged children in the Chuuk Lagoon island of Romonum in the Federated States of Micronesia. The book documents the natural histories, and home and school experiences of 12 case-study children ranging in age from 6 to 14.
Verena Keck
In this anthropological study of a neurodegenerative disease, Amyotrophic Lateral Sclerosis/Parkinsonism-Dementia Complex (ALS/PDC) in Guam, Western Pacific, Verena Keck intertwines three separate perspectives of history, medicine, and anthropology.