Pacific Worlds: A History of Seas, Peoples, and Cultures

by Matt K. Matsuda

• ISBN13: 9780521715669
• ISBN10: 0521715660
• Format: Paperback
• Copyright: 2012-02-20
• Publisher: Cambridge University Press

Summary

Asia, the Pacific Islands and the coasts of the Americas have long been studied separately. This essential single-volume history of the Pacific traces the global interactions and remarkable peoples that have connected these regions with each other and with Europe and the Indian Ocean, for millennia. From ancient canoe navigators, monumental civilisations, pirates and seaborne empires, to the rise of nuclear testing and global warming, Matt Matsuda ranges across the frontiers of colonial history, anthropology and Pacific Rim economics and politics, piecing together a history of the region. The book identifies and draws together the defining threads and extraordinary personal narratives which have contributed to this history, showing how localised contacts and contests have often blossomed into global struggles over colonialism, tourism and the rise of Asian economies. Drawing on Asian, Oceanian, European, American, ancient and modern narratives, the author assembles a fascinating Pacific region from a truly global perspective.

Author Biography

Matt K. Matsuda is Professor of History at Rutgers University, where he teaches Modern European and Asia-Pacific comparative histories. His previous publications include Empire of Love: Histories of France and the Pacific (2003).

Table of Contents

List of illustrations	p. vii
List of maps	p. xiii
Acknowledgments	p. xiv
Introduction: Encircling the ocean	p. 1
Civilization without a center	p. 9
Trading rings and tidal empires	p. 23
Straits, sultans, and treasure fleets	p. 37
Conquered colonies and Iberian ambitions	p. 49
Island encounters and the Spanish lake	p. 64
Sea changes and Spice Islands	p. 74
Samurai, priests, and potentates	p. 88
Pirates and raiders of the Eastern seas	p. 103
Asia, America, and the age of the galleons	p. 114
Navigators of Polynesia and paradise	p. 127
Gods and sky piercers	p. 144
Extremities of the Great Southern Continent	p. 161
The world that Canton made	p. 176
Hags, treaties, and gunboats	p. 197
Migrations, plantations, and the people trade	p. 216
Imperial destinies on foreign shores	p. 233
Traditions of engagement and ethnography	p. 256
War stories from the Pacific theater	p. 275
Prophets and rebels of decolonization	p. 293
Critical mass for the earth and ocean	p. 315
Specters of memory, agents of development	p. 335
Repairing legacies, claiming histories	p. 355
Afterword: World heritage	p. 375
Notes	p. 379
Index	p. 413
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