Book review : A history of Kiribati : from earliest times to the 40th anniversary of the Republic

Abstract

A history of Kiribati is an extended labour of love by an author with long residence in and a deep commitment to the Republic of Kiribati (formerly known as the Gilbert Islands), a group of coral atolls and reef islands in the Pacific Ocean. It is the first general text on Kiribati as a whole since Barrie Macdonald’s Cinderellas of the Empire in 1982. Broad in its sweep and something of a behemoth, Walsh’s text looks at most aspects of Kiribati culture and history, taking the story to 2018. He stresses that it is not ‘an original work of scholarship’ but, rather, a synthesis written in response to an ‘unsatisfied hunger amongst I Kiribati people, and those of I Kiribati descent, for historical knowledge’ of their own recent and distant past. [excerpt]