The Pacific Islands

by Douglas L. Oliver

Book Overview

Recognized as "the principal guide to Pacific peoples, their cultures, and history," The Pacific Islands has been a standard reference and text for scholars and students for many years. Containing extensive revisions and additions based on the large number of more recent historical and anthropological writings about the Pacific, this edition is a comprehensive view of the geography, economics, history, ethnology, and politics of the island groups...

• Format: Paperback
• Language: English
• ISBN: 0824812336
• ISBN13: 9780824812331
• Release Date: April 1989
• Publisher: University of Hawaii Press
• Length: 320 Pages
• Weight: 0.98 lbs.
• Dimensions: 0.8" x 6.1" x 9.0"

Customer Reviews

Excellent introduction to the region

This book is a history of all of the Pacific Islands. Oliver was trained as an anthropologist and lived for an extended period in the region. He draws on both his training and personal knowledge to not only describe the different islands and their groupings, but also to analyze the reasons for their cultural, political, and economic differences. The book is divided into three main sections and an epilogue. In the first section, The Islanders, Oliver recounts the prehistory of the islands, noting their geological origin and development. He also discusses the first settlers of the islands, and how and why anthropologists have grouped them into Melanesians, Polynesians, and Micronesians. In the second section, The Aliens, Oliver turns to the subject of contact with Westerners, taking up explorers, whalers, traders, missionaries, planters, blackbirders, merchants, and miners in turn. The third section, Metamorphosis, is the most extensive. In this section, Oliver identifies strong influences on development in the region, and traces how they have affected the history of each particular island group or island. For example, he notes how the development of a coconut economy was primary in islands such as Western Samoa or the Solomons, while sugar dominated the history of Hawaii and Fiji. Other influences were missionaries (Tonga), Mining (Nauru, New Caledonia), and Bases (American Samoa, Guam). This island-by-island analysis is followed by an epilogue, in which Oliver describes some of the ways in which the islanders and cultures have both lost and gained by their being brought into the international community. The events of World War II are also described briefly, but at the time when the book was originally written, the longer-lasting effects of the war had not yet become clear. For a history book, the text is exceptionally clear and engaging. The analytical approach helps tie in details and makes the overall picture of the broad region much more comprehensible. The text is not footnoted, but at the end of the book, there is an extensive list of primary sources and suggested readings, organized topically. There is also an index.