2. On Douglas Oliver’s The Pacific Islands

Chapters in this book

1. Frontmatter i
2. Contents v
3. Acknowledgments vii
4. The Text in Its Context: An Introduction 1
5. Part I. General Regional
6. 1. Fatal Choices? Morrell’s and Scarr’s Imperial Histories 17
7. 2. On Douglas Oliver’s The Pacific Islands 29
8. 3. Oskar Spate’s Trilogy 40
9. 4. Where theWaves Fall—or, Playing the Generalist Game 51
10. Part II. Methodologies
11. 5. Voyagers and Navigators: The Sharp-Lewis Debate 65
12. 6. The Evolution of Marshall Sahlins 76
13. 7. Revisioning the Pacific: Bernard Smith in the South Seas 87
14. 8. More Celebrated than Read: TheWork of Norma McArthur 98
15. 9. Two Pacific Biographies: Hubert Murray and Father Damien 111
16. Part III. Activities
17. 10. The Missionary Position: Messengers of Grace and TheWorks of Ta’unga 127
18. 11. Of Islands and Sandalwood: Shineberg, Maude, and the Hidden History of Trade 140
19. 12. Unsettling New Zealand History: The Revisionism of Sinclair and Ward 154
20. 13. Passage across the Sea: Indentured Labor to Fiji and from the Solomons 166
21. 14. Trumpet and Road: Two Classic Cargo Texts 178
22. Part IV. Island Groups
23. 15. Living in Archives and Dreams: The Histories of Kuykendall and Daws 191
24. 16. On Hezel’s The First Taint of Civilization 202
25. 17. On Greg Dening’s Islands and Beaches 213
26. 18. Disentangling Samoan History: The Contributions of Gilson and Davidson 225
27. 19. The Last Unknown: Gavin Souter and the Historiography of New Guinea 238
28. Contributors 251
29. Index 253