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.
#675046 in Books 1992-09-29Original language:EnglishPDF # 1 9.17 x 1.65 x 6.06l; 1.48 #File Name: 030014007X608 pages
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