Roman Tmetuchl

"He was born on February 11, 1926 during the Japanese administration of Palau, worked for the feared Kempeitai (military police) during the Pacific War and came to prominence as a legislator during the early UN/US Trust Territory of the Pacific Islands administration. He was a talented, visionary, and energetic man who thrived in the challenges of politics and business"--P. 1.

The battle for Saipan is remembered as one of the bloodiest battles fought in the Pacific during World War II, and was a turning point on the road to the defeat of Japan. In this work, the survivors--including Pacific Islanders on whose land the Americans and Japanese fought their war--have the opportunity to tell their stories in their own words. The author offers an introduction to the volume and arranges the oral histories by location--Saipan, Yap and Tinian, Rota, Palau Islands, and Guam--in the first half, and by branch of service in the second half.

Why are small states statistically more likely to have a democratic political system? By addressing this question from a qualitative and comparative methodological angle, this book analyses the effects of a small population size on political competition and participation. By comparing the four microstates of San Marino (Europe), St. Kitts and Nevis (Caribbean), Seychelles (Africa), and Palau (Oceania), it provides fresh and stimulating insight, concluding that the political dynamics of microstates are not as democratic as commonly believed. Instead, it is found in all four cases that smallness results in personalistic politics, dominance of the political executive, patron-client relations between citizens and politicians, and the circumvention of formal political institutions. In addition, the book suggests that the study of formal institutions provides an incomplete image of microstate democracy and that informal characteristics of politics in microstates also need to be explored in order to better explain the influence of smallness on democracy. This book will be of key interest to scholars and students of democracy, democratization, regional and decentralization studies and comparative politics.

America's efforts at economic development in the Caroline, Mariana, and Marshall Islands proved to be about transforming in dramatic fashion people who occupied real estate deemed vital to American strategic concerns. Called "Micronesians," these island people were regarded as other, and their otherness came to be seen as incompatible with American interests. And so, underneath the liberal rhetoric that surrounded arguments, proposals, and programs for economic development was a deeper purpose. America's domination would be sustained by the remaking of these islands into places that had the look, feel, sound, speed, smell, and taste of America - had the many and varied plans actually succeeded. However, the gap between intent and effect holds a rich and deeply entangled history. Remaking Micronesia stands as an important, imaginative, much needed contribution to the study of Micronesia, American policy in the Pacific, and the larger debate about development. It will be an important source of insight and critique for scholars and students working at the intersection of history, culture, and power in the Pacific.

For more than half a century, James Hamilton has been an active participant and an inside observer of some of the most consequential moments in modern US history. He has been involved in investigations concerning Watergate, the Kennedy assassination, “Debategate,” the Keating Five, the Clinton impeachment, Vince Foster’s suicide, the Valerie Plame affair, Benghazi, and the Major League Baseball steroids scandal. He argued against Brett Kavanaugh in front of the Supreme Court and won. He has tales to tell of power brokers, players, and politicians who helped steer the course of the country. Written in clear, incisive prose with self-deprecating humor, Advocate discusses the travails of prominent politicians and other well-known individuals, focusing particularly on high-profile congressional and other investigations. Credited with developing the modern system for vetting Democratic vice-presidential candidates, Hamilton recounts his extensive vetting of vice-presidential, cabinet, and Supreme Court candidates—including Joe Biden, John Edwards, and Ruth Bader Ginsburg. This book concludes with practical, sage advice for young lawyers entering the profession. Much more than a memoir from a seasoned lawyer, Advocate is a richly detailed history of some of the most sensational and controversial events in Washington politics over the past fifty years. By sharing information and insights known only to him, Hamilton fills in the gaps of historical events while advising the public on lessons that can be learned from the past. Anyone interested in the uniquely American intermingling of law and politics will find this an engaging read.

Making Micronesia is the story of Tosiwo Nakayama, the first president of the Federated States of Micronesia (FSM). Born to a Japanese father and an island woman in 1931 on an atoll northwest of the main Chuuk Lagoon group, Nakayama grew up during Japan’s colonial administration of greater Micronesia and later proved adept at adjusting to life in post-war Chuuk and under the American-administered Trust Territory of the Pacific Islands. After studying at the University of Hawai‘i, Nakayama returned to Chuuk in 1958 and quickly advanced through a series of administrative positions before winning election to the House of Delegates (later Senate) of the Congress of Micronesia. He served as its president from 1965 to1967 and again from 1973 to 1978. More than any other individual, Nakayama is credited with managing the complex political discussions on Saipan in 1975 that resulted in a national constitution for the different Micronesian states that made up the Trust Territory. A proponent of independence, he was a key player in the lengthy negotiations with the U.S. government and throughout the islands that culminated in the Compact of Free Association and the eventual creation of the FSM. In 1979 Nakayama was elected the first president of the FSM and spent the next eight years working to solidify an island nation and to see the Compact of Free Association through to approval and implementation. One wonders what the contemporary political configuration of the western Pacific would look like without Tosiwo Nakayama. His story, however, involves much more than a narrative of political events. Nakayama’s rise to prominence constitutes a remarkable story given the physical, political, and cultural distances he negotiated. His engagements with colonialism, decolonization, and nation-making place him squarely in the middle of the most important issues in twentieth-century Pacific Islands history. The study of his life also invites a reconsideration of migration, transnational crossings, and the actual size of island worlds. Making Micronesia follows Nakayama’s life through time, focusing on the expansiveness of his vision. In many ways, “Macronesia,” not “Micronesia,” seems a more appropriate term for the world he inhabited and tried to make accessible to others.

In 1967 the Peace Corps sent P. F. Kluge to paradise - or so the American possessions in Micronesia seemed. His assignment was as noble as it was adventurous: to help the people of those half-forgotten Pacific islands move from old to new, so that paradise would have prosperity and freedom as well as physical beauty. He immersed himself in the lives of the diverse peoples of the islands. He composed speeches for their leaders. He wrote a stirring manifesto that became the Preamble to the Constitution of Micronesia. He began a friendship with a man who would one day be president of Palau. And then, a generation later, P. F. Kluge went back. . . . The result is a book the New Yorker called "remarkably effective," the Economist deemed "terrific"; a book Smithsonian Magazine found to be "written from the heart." The Edge of Paradise shows the impact and ironies of America's presence in an undeveloped part of the world, how perhaps there's no way "a big place can touch a little one without harming it."