Journeys Towards Progress
Essays of a Geographer On Development and Change in Oceania
Ray Watters
Victoria University Press NZ$60.00

Journeys Towards Progress is described as both a valuable study of the emerging world of 20th-century Oceania and the Pacific Rim, and an extended reflection on a scholarly life’s work.

Over 50 years of close observation has produced important studies of Oceanic countries including Fiji, Kiribati, Papua New Guinea and Vanuatu. Framing comments and substantial new introductory and concluding essays put these particular histories in wider contexts and look forward to the future.

The singular value of Journeys towards Progress is that it is an exemplary record of the Pacific in the second half of the twentieth century as interpreted by a person who had the capacity to work at both village and government level and report what he found in the context of the social science theories of his time. —John McKinnon

Author Ray Watters was for many years before his retirement Professor of Geography at Victoria University. His new book was launched last evening in the Hunter Common Room on the Victoria University campus by Geoff Bertram, Senior Lecturer, School of Economics and Finance.