Nature, Culture, and History: the "Knowing" of Oceania

Explores the changing ways in which Pacific Islanders have been seen and represented by outsiders over the last 200 years. The Pacific Islands has been a testing ground for various Western ideas and ideologies and the author looks at this long intellectual history as an artifact of the Western imagination. Of particular concern is to see how concepts of nature, culture and history have defined Western perceptions of Pacific Islanders.