WWII is a fascinating subject. From the Ribbentrop-Molotov pact, to Germany's secret missile program, to the Manhattan project, the era is packed full of fascinating and often horrific stories of innovation. The story told by Skeeter Beaters is an example of the fascinating. What's great about Skeeter Beaters is that this is a story I hadn't heard before. There's no movie starring John Wayne or Tom Hanks, and not many bullets screaming over the head of the protagonist. Nonetheless, this is a story that should be told. As the editorial review already says, the US was losing many more men to disease than to combat with the Japanese. The US Navy showed good old American innovation by putting a team together assigned to fight the problem. This is the story of that team, and I'm happy that it has been told.

ONCE YOU START TO READ THE BOOK, YOU CAN'T PUT IT DOWN. tHE MEDIC SHOOTING THE JAP IN THE HEAD AFTER TREATING HIM FOR HIS INJURIES. THE FACT THAT OUR (U.S.A.) ENTIRE SUPPLY OF QUININE WAS LOST WHEN THE SHIP CARRYING IT WAS SUNK BY THE JAPS. THE FACT THAT THE MEN ON GUADALCANAL HAD VERY LITTLE FOOD OR SUPPLIES. THIS TRULY IS A BOOK THAT SHOULD BE READ BY EVERYONE.

I've been searching for a book other than a tourist's guide to New Zealand to learn more about my fiance's home country. This is the book! Filled with lots of relevant (and recent) information, including gorgeous photos, this book is amazing. I can't wait to visit this beautiful country with him and see it for myself!

I recently bought my first copy of this book in the Auckland airport. I ordered my second copy for a friend. In addition to being a beautiful "picture book" with photos the quality that I wish I had taken while there, this book provides extensive text with factual information on most aspects of life in New Zealand ranging from the land and its climate, its fauna and flora to its history and the quality of life there today. This is a great book for anyone planning a visit or wishing to recall the special beauties of this wonderful country after returning from a visit. Or you may "visit" this country through this book. It is a very up-to-date publication, we even recognized photos of some of the same Maori performers we saw in concert during our recent visit! This is a very comprehensive publication, I think that it is outstanding!

I borrowed this book from a friend because I really wanted to read something about the history of the islands. Dr. Peck shares a unique, humorous yet respectful rendition of life on the islands starting back in the 50's. His admiration of the people and their way of life is heartwarming and gave me an eye opening lesson on what the islanders lived through during the war years. My hats off to this book and its author.

It reads like, because it is, a collection of articles written over the course of a very intersting life. It probably ought to be also filed under Rota and Northern Marianas Islands, since that's where he lives now.

The Typhoon of War preserves important information about a people at a time that has received little attention from historians or anthropologist. For me it has opened doors I never even knew were there. As a kid living in Micronesia right after World War II, I didn't conceive that the "natives" would be anything other than eternally grateful for the American presence. I recognized differences between the people of Guam and Truk but it was mainly that some spoke better English, or were darker, and some lived in better houses. That some of them might actually look back to Japanese times as "better" was unthinkable. As I grew older, I began to perceive that perhaps we could have done a better job as saviors/colonizers than we did. Now in retirement I collect books about Micronesia and occasionally travel there. I guess I'm still trying to understand better this place I've been. The Typhoon of War is the book I've been waiting for to do just that.

And why should you read this book if you have no interest in Micronesians. It's thick, dense and won't keep you up all night. Here's why; to help you understand how we in America deal with other places (Viet Nam, Bosnia, Africa) and how we might improve our success by actually trying to understand what the people living there think.

The three authors of The Typhoon Of War, Poyer, Falgout, and Carrucci, have done an excellent job of researching and writing a wonderful piece of seamless historiography. Not only that, but they have written on a subject that has been left relatively untouched for too long, the role of Micronesians in World War II, on whose land the Japanese, the Americans, and their allies fought their war in the Pacific.

A multitude of books have been written on the subject of World War II in the Pacific, and new volumes continue to be produced every year. Yet, few of these hundreds of books have ever devoted more than a paragraph or two, if that, to what happened to the native people who have inhabited this far flung universe of islands for thousands of years. The Typhoon Of War, has corrected that oversight. For those readers, both professional and lay, who are constantly looking for new insights into the greatest and bloodiest conflict in the history of man will find more here than they might in the multitude of generic texts that have reproduced the same general chronology, ad nauseam, over the past fifty years.

I don't know any of the authors, but I am familiar with some of their individual earlier works from which I assume sprang this collective effort. Their bibliography is likewise impressive. They have bypassed little that has gone before them in what up until now has been a rather obscure area of research for all but a few academics. Having lived in the Mariana Islands for five years myself, and having done my own research in the area of World War II oral history amongst the islanders, I see that the authors have also used a variety of unpublished, yet valuable sources, such as the collection of oral histories collected in the 1980s and early 1990s by researchers at the University of Guam, Dr. Dirk Ballendorf, Dr. Don Shuster, and Wakako Higuchi.

Much of what I have read in The Typhoon Of War has confirmed what I have concluded from my own research, primarily, that the typhoon of war that swept the islands of Micronesia was the most defining experience of these people since the cataclysmic coming of the Spanish more than 350 years ago.

This is a great book. I grew up in this area and spent many happy hours on these beaches. It truly is a great present to share with friends overseas and with family.

Nobody alive on earth today can adequately describe the magic that is the Waitakere Ranges -- a unique place on this planet, unrivaled in beauty anywhere at any price. Travel around the Ranges, either on foot or by automobile, and you will be enchanted, spellbound.

Because words are horribly inadequate tools to describe beauty, the Waitakere Ranges must be experienced to be believed. However, _Untamed Coast_ comes about as close as possible to doing this place justice.

A magical book, for a magical place.

White Savages in the South Seas is a candid look at the not so glamourous lives of real people living in the South Pacific. This book is filled with fasinating characters like Susy No Pants and interesting adventures. Their stories are well written with great passion and witty humor. I enjoyed every moment.

A thinking person's look at life in the South Pacific as seen through the eyes of an imaginative and involved participant in life. You'll laugh and you'll cry and you will get an insight into the lives of many unusual and colorful people. Definitely not a "travel book," but rather a carefully written volumne which will forever effect the way you see life in the South Pacific.

Faletua Ala'ilima has done it again, contributing a work that provides a great deal of historical insight while captivating the reader's interest. This well-researched effort chronicles the life and changing times of one of Samoa's well known characters, weaving a rich narrative that touches on colonial times and the rise of modern Samoa. Like her other book, "My Samoan Chief," Ala'ilima's understanding of Samoan culture and her sense of humor provide a delightful treatment of indigenous life in the modern era. Her works are important in their own right and for the information they provide on Samoan culture, a topic with very little quality writing to date. This book is ideal for anyone wanting to know about Samoa specifically and the changing political and economic situation of the South Pacific generally.

This is a really good piece of work. I'm a maritime history buff and I enjoyed it a lot. If you're at all interested in the early history of the New England states or especially interested in Nantucket and the way people there made their fortunes, I'd give this book a try. It's a good history that reads like a good novel in places. Highly recommended.

The American Express Travel Guide of Amsterdam (1992), written by Derek Blythe, has been re-written by Carol Winkelman and re-published as Travel&Leisure: Amsterdam (1997). Travel&Leisure magazine, in conjunction with Macmillan Travel, designed this new version of the book for a larger audience that includes young travelers, budget travelers, babyboomer travelers, discriminating travelers, and business travelers. The new book is a combination of traditional and offbeat travel guide, helping the reader find his/her way to hotels, restaurants, museums, and historical sites while also taking him/her "inside" Amsterdam to experience its cafe culture, lively arts scene, and famous nightlife. The new book, like The American Express Guide, includes an excursion to Rotterdam that leads the reader from the historic to the ultramodern.

This is a wonderful book - of particular interest to Australians of course, to whom Captain Cook is a prominent historical figure, but also to anyone interested in the grand tradition of the master mariners and adventures on the high seas.

Physically it is a beautiful book as well, with fabulous illustrations and quality paper. Perhaps not a book for everyone, but for serious collectors it is a gem.