Writers are not known to have taken to Pills, not yet. In any case, since males dominate the world of writing, proliferation of books cannot be stopped by any known oral contraceptives. Proliferation of books is certainly better than proliferation of weapons and conflicts. All books are not as stale as airlines food. Some are tasty, even stimulating. I should place Mr. O’Neill’s book in this category. The only thing wrong with it—and it is a matter of my personal prejudice—is that it came from the womb of a conference. Conferences, especially academic ones, are possessed with fecundity which few individual scholars are capable of. But somehow I look askance at books born out of wedlock—the individual writer’s marriage to his own germs and sweat.
This volume is based on not only a conference but also on a programme, we are told; the programme of arms control and international security studies conducted within the Research School of Pacific Studies of the Australian National University by the Department of International Relations and the Strategic and Defence Studies Centre. It deals with proliferation of weaponry in the Indian Ocean and Pacific Ocean area, and is therefore of considerable topical interest. Proliferation of weaponry in this area is of direct concern to India and each of the nations, large or small, which are located on the rim of Asia. It is of great interest to the super-powers too; after all, most of the weaponry is introduced by them and a handful of other industrialized countries.