Represented Communities: Fiji and World Decolonisation, by John Kelly and Martha Kaplan (Book Review)

Abstract

Kelly and Kaplan’s Represented communities is a collection of independent essays with the central aim of critiquing Benedict Anderson’s reflections, in Imagined communities (1983, 1991), on the origin and spread of nationalism. Fiji is promised as a case study, and comparative material from Hawaii is also featured in the book. Each essay is internally very strong and can be read as a compact and complete entity. Both authors have a long and admirable history of research and publication on Pacific issues.