Congratulations to Brad Underhill on the publication of Preparing a Nation? The New Deal in the Villages of Papua New Guinea (ANU Press). Preparing a Nation?, based on extensive archival research, addresses perennial questions of Australian colonialism in Papua New Guinea. To what extent did Australia prepare Papua New Guinea for independence? And what were the policies and the ideologies behind colonial development, implemented after World War II? A key innovation of this book is to take these questions from policy desks in Canberra and Port Moresby to the villages of four administrative areas: Chimbu, Milne Bay, Sepik and New Hanover. No less an authority than Bill Gammage predicts that this volume will become ‘the standard reference for its subject’. Congratulations, Brad!