Islanders: The Pacific in the Age of Empire Contributor(s): Thomas, Nicholas (Author) |
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ISBN: 030018056X ISBN-13: 9780300180565 Publisher: Yale University Press OUR PRICE: $27.72 Product Type: Paperback - Other Formats Published: February 2012 |
Additional Information |
BISAC Categories: - History | Oceania - History | Modern - 19th Century |
Dewey: 996 |
Physical Information: 0.99" H x 5.58" W x 9.37" (1.15 lbs) 336 pages |
Themes: - Chronological Period - 19th Century - Cultural Region - Oceania |
Descriptions, Reviews, Etc. |
Publisher Description: An incisive, evocative history of the experience of empire in the Oceanic world This compelling book explores the lived experience of empire in the Pacific, the last region to be contacted and colonized by Europeans following the great voyages of Captain Cook. Unlike conventional accounts that emphasize confrontation and the destruction of indigenous cultures, Islanders reveals there was gain as well as loss, survival as well as suffering, and invention as well as exploitation.Empowered by imaginative research in obscure archives and collections, Thomas rediscovers a rich and surprising history of encounters, not only between Islanders and Europeans, but among Islanders, brought together in new ways by explorers, missionaries, and colonists. He tells the story of the making of empire, not through an impersonal survey, but through vivid stories of the lives of men and women--some visionary, some vicious, and some just eccentric--and through sensuous evocation of seascapes and landscapes of the Pacific. A fascinating re-creation of an Oceanic world, Islanders offers a new paradigm, not only for histories of the Pacific, but for understandings of cultural contact everywhere. |