Pick of the paperbacks

AMERICAN SAMOA, by Chris Chris tensen is a bright but brief publi cation which should give tourism a boost in the Samoas. But that's as far as it goes. Christensen is undoub tedly a good photographer and his 58 colour shots of America's only South Seas possession are among the best to come from there. He was also responsible for the 3,000-word text which adds nothing to literature on Samoa and the Samoans. Copra planters will be surprised to learn that "Today copra is of much less economic importance than formerly when the coconut yield had signi ficant trade value." Tell that to the copra producers. (The Robert Boom Co, Honolulu. SUS 2).

The Australians In Nine Wars,

by Peter Firkins, will come as a sur prise to many people. Such a new nation and yet it has been involved in nine wars, none of its own making.

This 510-pager recounts, sketchily of course because it's a huge subject, the victories and defeats of the Aust ralian fighting man from the Maori Wars in the 1860 s down to the latest schemozzle in Vietnam. It brid ges a gap because the Australian, in most war histories, is usually lumped with the Allies. Here he is given his proper place. He went to war because he was at first a colonial and later a member of the British Commonwealth. If Australia becomes a republic, will he be involved in nine more wars in the next 100 years? (Pan, $2.85).

THE TIMELESS LAND, by Eleanor

Dark, is the first of her trilogy about the early years of Australian settle ment. It's not history but fiction culled from historical records and tells the story of the first settle ment of Sydney as recorded by mem bers of the First Fleet and others as seen by the Aborigines from the surrounding hills which is where most of the fiction comes in. At the time the first settlers laid the flimsy foundations of what has be come the greatest city in the South Pacific, settlers were too busy hunt ing the Aborigine to ask for his im pressions. (Fontana, $2.15).

Australian Government Today,

by Geoffrey Sawer, first appeared in 1948 and has sold its way through 11 editions. This last edition is a complete revision and incorporates constitutional amendments up to July this year. For those who want a lucid account of what makes Australia tick, how it is governed and by whom with chap ters on political parties, the Civil Service and industrial tribunals, with out having to wade through miles of parliamentary and legal records, this is just the thing. There's a brief paragraph on the federal territories, which, with reference to Papua New Guinea, ends with a kind of prophecy —"The events so far in 1973 suggest that the new nation would at first have a highly centralised Westmin ster-style parliamentary democracy, but this could soon be altered, other pos sibilities being a presidential one party state, Tanzania-fashion, or a federal system." (Melbourne Univer sity Press, $1.20).