Introduction: encircling the ocean; 1. Civilization without a center; 2. Trading rings and tidal empires; 3. Straits, sultans and treasure fleets; 4. Conquered colonies and Iberian ambitions; 5. Island encounters and the Spanish lake; 6. Sea changes and spice islands; 7. Samurai, priests and potentates; 8. Pirates and raiders of the eastern seas; 9. Asia, America, and the age of the galleon; 10. Navigators of Polynesia and paradise; 11. Gods and sky piercers; 12. Extremities of the Great Southern Continent; 13. The world that Canton made; 14. Flags, treaties, and gunboats; 15. Migrations, plantations, and the people trade; 16. Imperial destinies on foreign shores; 17. Traditions of engagement and ethnography; 18. War stories from the Pacific theater; 19. Prophets and rebels of decolonization; 20. Critical mass for the earth and ocean; 21. Specters of memory, agents of development; 22. Repairing legacies, claiming histories; Afterword: world heritage.
Essential single-volume history of the Pacific region and the global interactions which define it.
Matt 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).
'Finally - a coherent portrayal of the immense Pacific. Matsuda
narrates brilliantly the communities that traded and warred among
islands, mainland, and currents; he illustrates beautifully the
cultural exchanges and social struggles of this vast region. This
book will ensure that the Pacific becomes central to discussion of
global historical patterns.' Patrick Manning, University of
Pittsburgh
'This is a daring and thought-provoking read, as the author weaves
together individual life experiences to demonstrate the complex
interplay between transcultural connectedness and power
contestations. Reminiscent of Sugata Bose's A Hundred Horizons,
which focused on the Indian Ocean, Matsuda's book has managed to
transcend local, regional and world history in literary-quality
tales of 'overlapping transits' that challenge our conventional
categories and highlight larger historical issues.' David Chappell,
University of Hawai`i
'The range of Matt Matsuda's Pacific Worlds is extraordinary. This
book breaks down longstanding distinctions between the histories of
the Pacific Islands and those of east and southeast Asia and
America's Pacific coast. Broad-brush in the best sense, it offers a
superb distillation of changing economies, societies, and
imaginations. Taking the reader from ancient migrations to current
political conflicts, it's a fine introduction to the human history
of the world's largest ocean.' Nicholas Thomas, University of
Cambridge
'[This] book interweaves a fascinating network of tales and
episodes that illuminate the diversity of Pacific localities and
lives through history. Matsuda's narrative, revealing a remarkable
breadth and depth of research and understanding, is both forcefully
polemical and eloquently - even entertainingly - readable.' Harriet
Guest, University of York
'Matsuda has produced a rarity: a theoretically sophisticated work
that is a real pleasure to read.' BBC History Magazine
'Many in the huge surrounding landmasses of South-East Asia, East
Asia, the Americas and Australia see 'the Pacific' as being the
countries bordering the Pacific Ocean. Matt Matsuda's splendid
history shatters the basin and, with it, the rim … For those most
interested in the Pacific Islands, this book addresses and
contextualizes the substantial contacts of south Asia and China
with the western Pacific, especially northern Australia and New
Guinea, a prolonged relationship that some notable Pacific
historians have largely ignored to privilege later English and
French interactions on Tahiti in the late eighteenth century.'
Judith A. Bennet, Pacific Affairs
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