The U.S. government tested 67 atomic and thermonuclear bombs in the Marshall Islands between 1946 and 1958, one hundred times more megatonnage than was detonated at the Nevada test site. While these facts are relatively well known, the numerous and varied effects of these experiments on the Marshallese people are not. Holly Barker's book Bravo for the Marshallese: Regaining control in a post-nuclear, post-colonial world addresses the medical, social, economic, linguistic, and psychological impact that America's nuclear testing program had and continues to have on the lives of the Marshall Islanders. Barker bases her discussion on a rich assortment of ethno-historical data that include extensive interviews, fieldwork, and recently declassified documents. Probably the greatest strength of this book is that it gives voice to the radiation survivors. Her ability to convey the survivors' most intimate and tragic experiences with sensitivity and clarity can, in part, be attributed to her 15-year collaborative relationship with the people of the Marshall Islands. Barker frames the ethnographic material within a historical and descriptive discussion that gives context to the narratives and grounds the data. Yet, despite the many strengths of this book, Barker's analysis of the data presented falls short of its promise.

Bravo for the Marshallese is part of a new Thomson/Wadsworth series on applied anthropology, Case Studies on Contemporary Social Issues. The purpose of the series is to provide its readers, primarily high school and undergraduate students, with a working understanding of important contemporary social issues in various world regions, in a format that is both substantive and accessible. Barker's book, with its readable style and structure, fits well with the purpose of this series. Many readers may find her book reminiscent of the series Case Studies in Cultural Anthropology, edited by George and Louise Spindler (published by Holt, Rinehart & Winston), as it not only covers what might be considered anthropological basics but also appears to mirror the format used in that series. The prevalent themes in Bravo for the Marshallese, however, focus more on the applied potential of anthropology, sociopolitical issues in light of colonialism, the culpability of the United States and its agents, and the Marshall Islanders' responses to their experiences.

In the initial chapters, Barker sets the anthropological stage by describing the geography, sociopolitical organization, colonial history, and language of the Marshall Islands, deftly incorporating the history of the U.S. nuclear testing program. She demonstrates how the United States evaluated the islands' history and culture, taking note of the islanders' devout Christianity, the Marshalls' isolated locale, the apparent barrenness of the islands, and the distance from the United States, when officials chose to use these islands as a testing ground. Barker describes how the U.S. government and its agencies (Department of Energy and Brookhaven National Laboratory) systematically disregarded the health and safety of the islanders while choosing not to inform them of the risks involved: “The radiation … exposed every atoll in the Marshall Islands to radiation…. When radioactive ash fell on the islands … people inhaled radiation into their lungs. In areas where fallout was severe, … [it] stuck to the coconut oil people use on their skin and hair to keep them soft. Children played with and even ate what looked to them like snow” (p. 21). The U.S. government also did not warn the Marshallese about the continuing effects of environmental radiation on land and ocean resources. Finally, and particularly disturbing, scientists and medical personnel conducted medical tests without the permission of the Marshallese and monitored the progression of the radiation-caused illnesses. In Project 4.1, the formal name given to this study, the Marshallese exposure was seen as a “scientific opportunity” that apparently did not include treatment. It is not surprising that the Republic of the Marshall Islands believes that the U.S. government considered not only the islands but also the people “expendable.”

One interesting aspect of Barker's discussion is her description of how the U.S. government has limited its financial (and implicitly its moral) responsibility for cleanup of the islands, ongoing healthcare costs, and compensation for the Marshallese. The United States has created two categories of islands and people: those “exposed” to radiation and those “unexposed.” This legal designation is applied by island, and based on the island of residence during the nuclear weapons testing. According to the government, only four islands were affected: Bikini, Enewetak, Rongelap, and Utrik. Therefore, many Marshallese are considered “unexposed.” This neat legal narrowing leaves out people from the other atolls, excludes those who lived and worked on these particular islands after the tests, and also denies the cleanup crews and their families access to compensation. All of these people have experienced radiological diseases, including a variety of cancers, thyroid diseases, and reproductive abnormalities. Because the “unexposed” eventually suffer the same ill effects as the “exposed,” in a clever twist of logic the U.S. government negates the radiological origin of the diseases experienced by the “exposed” group because they are similar to those experienced by the “unexposed” group. Although these data, in many ways, speak for themselves, Barker misses an opportunity to analyze in depth the U.S. government's use of language and legal categories. Unfortunately, she does not draw on the extensive literature from legal anthropology and linguistics that would strengthen her critique and deepen her analysis.

In the central chapters of the book, the Marshallese voices are increasingly strong. Barker incorporates extensive quotes that describe the islanders' experiences and the effects of radiation on their bodies. She conducted approximately 200 interviews with Marshallese from Rongelap, Ailuk, and Likiep, although she draws on only a few in her analysis. Nevertheless, through these chillingly straightforward narratives the reader begins to understand the horrors of their experiences in a visceral way. The descriptions of children born with a wide array of abnormalities, such as missing bones or organs, are particularly heartrending: the Marshallese use such terms as “octopus”, “jellyfish,” “marlin,” or “clam” babies to describe these short-lived children. Women also describe kiraap ‘grape’ births in reference to now prevalent molar or hydatidiform pregnancies.

Ironically, while these chapters are the most emotionally powerful and linguistically significant, they are also the weakest theoretically. Barker's lack of success in her analysis of the substantial data is a result of inconsistencies in presentation, a failure to substantiate many of her conclusions, and a shallow application of linguistic theory. She carefully presents lengthy sections from her interviews, first in Marshallese and then with an English translation. Moreover, in parts of the text, she distinguishes between the speakers' use of Marshallese words and of English in order to highlight changes in language use. Unfortunately, she is not consistent, so that at points in her discussion it is unclear whether the survivors are using only Marshallese or Marshallese and English words to describe the deformed babies. Also, a table that lists English loan words used during three interviews is incomplete, as becomes apparent during the reading of the Marshallese quotes. Further, at several points in the book Barker makes assertions about U.S. government policies, yet the quotes from government sources that she uses to support these conclusions come from documents that were written as much as 20 years before the event she is addressing.

Finally, in describing the Marshallese use of what she calls “radiation language,” which includes the use of English, Barker argues that this “does not represent a creolization or pidginization of the English language where English language creeps in and replaces a local language, but the evolution of a completely separate language with different meanings” (83). I was not convinced that this was, in fact, a separate language with different meanings. Rather, I think that it would be more fruitful for Barker to examine the use of metaphor, codeswitching, and syncretism in her linguistic data as a way to draw out more fully the underlying meanings and themes in survivors' stories.

Despite any reservations I have about her analysis and the presentation of her data, some of which would have been solved by a more careful editorial eye, this is an excellent book for courses on the Pacific islands, colonialism, and globalization, especially in conjunction with the film Radio Bikini. It is an important book that tells the stories of the people we have not heard, even though their stories are painful. One has to wonder, especially in light of current events, who were those people who participated in the exploitation and watched the suffering of radiation survivors without doing more than documenting the progression of these diseases, and who attributed the existence of severe birth abnormalities to inbreeding and poor nutrition? Barker's call for more work in applied anthropology among disenfranchised groups is well supported by this book.