Chapters in this book

1. Frontmatter I
2. CONTENTS IX
3. Acknowledgments XI
4. Preface: Regarding Tahiti XV
5. 1. Histories of an Island and an Idea: From Tahiti to New Cythera 1
6. 2. Garden of Eden to Dying Paradise: The Foundational Myths of Tahiti 20
7. 3. Polynesia in Paris: Paul Gauguin in Search of the Exotic at the Exposition Universelle of 1889 54
8. 4. The Colonial Lens: Gauguin, Primitivism, and Photography 91
9. 5. Henry Adams, Indolence, and Ethnic Tourism in Tahiti 133
10. 6. John La Farge and the Sensuousness of Regret 171
11. 7. Against Vanishing 213
12. Notes 241
13. Glossary of Tahitian Terms 289
14. Selected Bibliography 291
15. List of Illustrations 297
16. Index 305