Basil Shaw BA, BEd, DPE (Qld), MA (Ed., London), PhD, completed his biography of Michael Somare as a PhD dissertation in the Division of Humanities, Griffith University, Queensland.

A study of traditional leadership in Papua New Guinean societies provides the conceptual framework for Basil Shaw’s, Somare: A Political Biography of the First Prime Minister of Papua New Guinea. His study examines Somare’s life from his birth in the Murik Lakes in the Mandated Territory of New Guinea in 1936 to his loss of the prime ministership of Papua New Guinea in 1985.

The study is presented in two parts. The first part, Chapters 1-4, establishes a need for a biography of Somare and identifies three major objectives: firstly, to review the material in Somare’s autobiography, Sana, which covers the period to 1975, and to add to it where possible; secondly, to update Somare’s life to 1985, when he lost the prime ministership for the second time, and thirdly to explore the relationship between traditional leadership and contemporary political leadership at the national level.

The second part of the study, Chapters 5 to 10, is the political biography proper. The early chapters focus on the developmental stages of Somare’s life, showing how the leadership characteristics of oratory, effective communication, negotiating ability and the determination to retain power function in the National Parliament. The latter chapters of this part of the dissertation examine the difficulties that Somare and others faced in the introduction of the Westminster system of government into Papua New Guinea. The challengers whom Somare has faced as a political leader, and the issues which deprived him of government in 1980 and 1985, are also examined. (From Basil Shaw’s ‘Abstract’.)