European Impact and Pacific Influence

An edited collection which explores British and German involvement in the Pacific Islands over the last 200 years and the impact this has had on all parties involved.

British and German ambitions have clashed in the Pacific at many times in the last two centuries. This is a study of those episodes, and their effects on the European powers and the Pacific Islanders involved. It throws light on the activities of missionaries in Micronesia, head-hunters in New Guinea, Law-makers in Tonga and the influence of the British and Germans in the region. The book considers: European perceptions of Pacific islanders and vice versa; the ecological effect of European intervention, both on the environment and its inhabitants; the efforts to impose a European rule of law in the South Pacific; and the area of sexuality as a specific form of Pacific-European interaction where cultural differences between European and traditional behaviour was at its most marked.