470 ANNUAL REPORT SMITHSONIAN INSTITUTION, 1945 



WARTIME PUBLICATIONS 



The outstanding wartime service of the Institution in the field of 

 publication will be found in its new series entitled "War Background 

 Studies." With the war reaching to remote parts of the earth, par- 

 ticularly in the Pacific region, and with many of the Institution's 

 scientific staff knowing these areas through first-hand experience and 

 study, the Smithsonian found itself in an excellent position to make 

 this specialized knowledge of direct use in connection with the war. 

 It was decided to restrict the series largely to the Pacific area, as it 

 was felt that the countries of the European theater of war were too 

 well known to need further discussion in such a pamphlet series. 



The series was begun with a general paper entitled "Origin of the 

 Far Eastern Civilizations," in which the prehistory and early history 

 of the Far East form a backdrop for the peoples of today. This was 

 followed by a series of papers on the peoples, geography, history, 

 natural history, and other features of the Soviet Union, the Philip- 

 pines, Polynesia, Japan, Siam, New Guinea, Alaska, the East Indies, 

 Micronesia and Melanesia, Burma, India, French Indochina, China, 

 and the Aleutian Islands. These were interspersed with papers on 

 general topics related to the war, such as "The Evolution of Nations," 

 "Are Wars Inevitable?" "The Natural-history Background of Cam- 

 ouflage," "Poisonous Reptiles of the World," and two on special war 

 areas not in the Pacific region, namely, "Egypt and the Suez Canal" 

 and "Iceland and Greenland." 



As soon as the new series became known the papers were in wide 

 demand, especially from Army and Navy units and individuals, for 

 whom the series was primarily intended. The papers were at first 

 distributed free to all applicants, but it became apparent that the 

 Institution's limited printing funds would not permit the continuance 

 of this unrestricted distribution. After July 1944 civilians requesting 

 copies were asked to pay approximately cost price, but Army and 

 Navy personnel continued to get them without charge. 



When Army and Navy intelligence and education officials became 

 familiar with the contents of the War Background Studies, they began 

 to order special printings of the various papers for orientation and 

 educational use within the armed forces. At the end of the war more 

 than 400,000 copies had been thus used in addition to the Institution's 

 own distribution of over 225,000 copies, a total of over 625,000 books. 

 Through various sources it has been learned that the series was used 

 by the Army and Navy in orientation courses, in military government 

 schools, and in general educational programs among the military and 

 naval personnel; by civilian agencies, as textbooks in university 

 courses, as the basis for lectures and club discussions, and in numerous 

 libraries as a part of their special war literature service. 



