The Neglected War

Administered by military officers with little civil oversight, the new colonial regimes employed the mandates they had received at the Paris Peace Conference with impurity. Hiery's scrupulous review of the evidence, gathered from largely unknown primary sources, has uncovered a story of masquerades and coverups, negligence and duplicity, leading in some cases to full-blown atrocities. Most of all, he tells the story of Pacific Islanders, how they coped with the dramatic changes brought about by the war, and how they tried to influence its consequences. Many Islanders were fully aware that their political destiny was to be redefined after the war, and a few even saw it as an opportunity to achieve independence. This is also the story of their failure