bout de papier, Vol. 30, No. 1 (2017), pp. 39–40
and Atom Bombs, Brutal Dictators, Fading
Empires, and the Coming Collision of the
PACIFIC: SILICON CHIPS AND SURFBOARDS, CORAL REEFS AND ATOMIC BOMBS, BRUTAL DICTATORS, FADING EMPIRES, AND THE COMING COLLISION OF THE WORLD’S SUPERPOWERS, by Simon Winchester, New York: HarperCollins, 2015, 512 pp
Pacific — and Turbulent Simon Winchester takes us on a voyage through cross-currents of regional geopolitics, environment, technology, and culture.
The Pacific Ocean is surely one of the world’s least aptly named geographical spaces. Home to violent weather patterns that have bedeviled sailors for centuries, it is also a place of almost unimaginable vastness — larger than all the world’s continents combined. In the past, it has also been something of a non-place — of scattered islands and locals who have suffered under various imperial designs.
In his most recent work, simply titled Pacific, Simon Winchester, perhaps the world’s foremost travelogue writer, argues that this region is taking centre stage in world affairs much as the Mediterranean and the Atlantic did in times past. His volume aims to set the scene of the Pacific for the 21st Century, framed by post-Cold War thermonuclear testing in the Marshall Islands, on the one hand, and the budding rivalry between China and the United States today, on the other. In between, the author offers us a chronological tour of some of what he considers the most important “pivotal moments” in the Pacific over the past 65 years — such as the Japanese development of the transistor radio; the emergence and popularization of surfing; and Australia’s uncertain and uneasy relationship with its Asian neighbours.
The strength of the book is also its weakness: the one-word title is accompanied by an extended subtitle: Silicon Chips and Surfboards, Coral Reefs and Atom Bombs, Brutal Dictators, Fading Empires, and the Coming Collision of the World’s Superpowers. Covering a wide range of topics across the decades, the reader gets a strong sense of the impact of the Pacific both along its borders and beyond. But the narrative does not have unity. For instance, the chapter on the emergence and popularization of surfing, from its origin in Polynesia to expansion to Hawaii and then to California, contributes to the book’s pan-Pacific perspective. It is beautifully written and would make a fine stand-alone piece. But it fits awkwardly between a chapter on the 1950s Japanese development and export of the transistor radio and another one on North Korea’s capture in 1968 of a U.S. surveillance ship, the Pueblo. Readers who have enjoyed Winchester’s peripatetic travels in the past, reflected in his books such as Outposts, in which he visits far-flung and nearly forgotten former British colonies, will appreciate Pacific’s flexible structure; those who prefer a book that unfolds around a central theme, such as his Professor and the Madman, in which he recounts the making of the Oxford English Dictionary, will be less positively inclined.
Politics and geo-politics provide the raison d’être for the book and Winchester’s chapter on Australia, “How Goes the
Lucky Country?” is especially incisive in both areas. He uses as an historic turning point the then-Governor General’s dismissal in 1975 of the reform-minded Labor government (an administration that ended Australia’s involvement in the Vietnam War and opened formal diplomatic relations with China, among other bold measures). It would be more historically accurate to say that there were a series of turning points, including the ending of the White Australia immigration policy in 1970, and, more symbolically, the inauguration of the Sydney Opera House in 1973. Winchester argues that two separate Australias exist: one expansive and outward-looking, reflected in the bustling multicultural metropoles of Sydney and Melbourne, and another more traditional and protectionist, exemplified by the country’s policy of intercepting boats of would-be refugees and marooning migrants in off-shore processing centres.
Canada and Australia are often seen as Commonwealth cousins, with British historical origins, parliamentary systems, resource-based economies, and uneven relationships with their Pacific neighbours over the sweep of history. Regrettably, however, Winchester did not turn his talents to a chapter on Canada and the Pacific.
Instead, the references to Canada are scattered, suggesting an involvement at times quixotic and happenstance. Consider one example of each. In 1884, Canadian engineer Sandford Fleming proposed that the prime meridian be located in the Pacific, instead of through Greenwich, England, to reflect the importance of the former to global trade. Needless to say, the proposal was not adopted (although Fleming was knighted in 1897 for other accomplishments). In a chapter on the development of the Japanese transistor radio, which Winchester considers a key technological accomplishment of the 20th century, he reports that it was a Winnipeg-based businessman, Albert Cohen, who provided the first market for this product. In 1955, Cohen was wandering through Tokyo seeking export opportunities and came across the new invention, an attractive alternative to the large console-type radios that then dominated living rooms. By a twist of fate, this Canadian helped the Sony Corporation to get its start.
A chapter on Canada in Pacific would have fit well with Winchester’s model of historical “turning points”: Canada arguably had its own Asia Pacific shift with Expo 86 in Vancouver. The handover of Hong Kong in 1997 was another important pivotal moment, with implications for Canada’s demographics, culture, and housing market, notably in Vancouver and Toronto. Winchester’s book offers us a backdrop of the diffuse forces shaping the Pacific, but we will have to write our own chapter, and unlike our Australian cousins, make our own luck.
David MacDuff is a Foreign Service officer currently based in Ottawa. He was previously posted in Singapore from 2010-14.
Originally published in bout de papier, Vol. 30, No. 1 (2017), pp. 39–40. Read the rest of this issue →
