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Books > History > Australasian & Pacific history
In the 1880s an oracle priest, Navosavakadua, mobilized Fijians of the hinterlands against the encroachment of both Fijian chiefs and British colonizers. British officials called the movement the Tuka cult, imagining it as a contagious superstition that had to be stopped. Navosavakadua and many of his followers, deemed "dangerous and disaffected natives," were exiled. Scholars have since made Tuka the standard example of the Pacific cargo cult, describing it as a millenarian movement in which dispossessed islanders sought Western goods by magical means. In this study of colonial and postcolonial Fiji, Martha Kaplan examines the effects of narratives made real and traces a complex history that began neither as a search for cargo, nor as a cult. Engaging Fijian oral history and texts as well as colonial records, Kaplan resituates Tuka in the flow of indigenous Fijian history-making and rereads the archives for an ethnography of British colonizing power. Proposing neither unchanging indigenous culture nor the inevitable hegemony of colonial power, she describes the dialogic relationship between plural, contesting, and changing articulations of both Fijian and colonial culture. A remarkable enthnographic account of power and meaning, Neither Cargo nor Cult addresses compelling questions within anthropological theory. It will attract a wide audience among those interested in colonial and postcolonial societies, ritual and religious movements, hegemony and resistance, and the Pacific Islands.
Ever since the two ancient nations of India and China established modern states in the mid-20th century, they have been locked in a complex rivalry ranging across the South Asian region. Garver offers a scrupulous examination of the two countries' actions and policy decisions over the past fifty years. He has interviewed many of the key figures who have shaped their diplomatic history and has combed through the public and private statements made by officials, as well as the extensive record of government documents and media reports. He presents a thorough and compelling account of the rivalry between these powerful neighbors and its influence on the region and the larger world.
Colonial Voices explores the role of language in the greater 'civilising' project of the British Empire through the dissemination and reception of, and challenge to, British English in Australia during the period from the 1840s to the 1940s. This was a period in which the art of oratory, eloquence and elocution was of great importance in the empire and Joy Damousi offers an innovative study of the relationship between language and empire. She shows the ways in which this relationship moved from dependency to independence and how, during that transition, definitions of the meaning and place of oratory, eloquence and elocution shifted. Her findings reveal the central role of voice and pronunciation in informing and defining both individual and collective identity, as well as wider cultural views of class, race, nation and gender. The result is a pioneering contribution to cultural history and the history of English within the British Empire.
Discover the complexity of China's past with this multi-faceted portrayal of the storied nation from a leading expert in the field The newly revised Second Edition of A History of China delivers a comprehensive treatment of the political, economic, social, and cultural history of China that covers all major events and trends that have shaped the country over the centuries. The book is written in a clear and uncomplicated style, sure to be of assistance to undergraduate students with little prior background knowledge in the subject matter. The text examines Chinese history through a global lens to better understand how foreign influences affected domestic policies and practices. It includes discussions of the roles played by non-Chinese ethnic groups in China, like the Tibetans and Uyghurs, and the Mongol and Manchu rulers who held power in China for several centuries. The distinguished author takes pains to incorporate the perspectives and narratives of people traditionally left out of Chinese history, including women, peasants, merchants, and artisans. Readers will also enjoy the inclusion of: A thorough introduction to early and ancient Chinese history, including classical China, the first Chinese empires, and religious and political responses to the period between 220 and 581 CE An exploration of the restoration of Empire under Sui and Tang, as well as post-Tang society and Glorious Song A discussion of China and the Mongol world, including Mongol rule in China and the isolationism and involvement on the global stage of the Ming dynasty A treatment of China in global history, including the Qing era, the Republican period, and the Communist era Perfect for undergraduate students of courses on Chinese history and Central Asian History, the Second Edition of A History of China will also earn a place in the libraries of students studying global history and related classes in history departments and departments of Asian studies. The Blackwell History of the World Series The goal of this ambitious series is to provide an accessible source of knowledge about the entire human past, for every curious person in every part of the world. It will comprise some two dozen volumes, of which some provide synoptic views of the history of particular regions while others consider the world as a whole during a particular period of time. The volumes are narrative in form, giving balanced attention to social and cultural history (in the broadest sense) as well as to institutional development and political change. Each provides a systematic account of a very large subject, but they are also both imaginative and interpretative. The Series is intended to be accessible to the widest possible readership, and the accessibility of its volumes is matched by the style of presentation and production.
George Anson Byron (1789-1868), cousin of the famous poet, was a naval officer and the seventh Baron Byron. When the king and queen of Hawaii died of measles in July 1824 on a visit to England, Byron was chosen to lead the voyage that returned the bodies to their native land. Prepared by Maria Graham (1785-1842), known later as Lady Callcott, this work was published in 1826 and organised into two parts: the first gives a brief history of the islands, culminating in an account of the fatal visit; the second and larger part is compiled from the journals of those on board HMS Blonde. Engravings made from the drawings of the ship's artist, Robert Dampier, complement observations about the geography of Hawaii, its people and their customs. The remarkable journey home involved the first European sighting of Malden Island and the rescue of survivors from a shipwreck.
Originally published in 1964, this book presents a study of domestic capital formation in Australia from 1860 to 1900, a period of vigorous economic expansion. The text is divided into four main parts: the first discusses the conditions of Australian economic growth; the second is a historical analysis of private investment; the third studies investment in communications in relation to the public sector; the fourth investigates structural readjustment in the light of the end of expansion. Illustrative figures and numerous tables are also included. This book will be of value to anyone with an interest in Australian history and the development of the Australian economy.
In May 1787, eleven ships left England with more than seven hundred convicts on board, along with orders to establish a penal colony at Botany Bay, New South Wales. Watkin Tench (c.1758 1833) was a crew member on one of the ships of this First Fleet, the Charlotte, and he recalls the voyage and early days of the settlement in this vivid and engaging account, first published in 1789. The first half of the work retraces the route of the six-month journey, which took the fleet to Brazil and the Cape of Good Hope. The later chapters recount the landing at Botany Bay in January 1788, the establishment of a colony at nearby Port Jackson and observations about the natural world in this new settlement. Tench also discusses the initial interaction with the Aboriginal people, making this work an important source for scholars of British colonialism and Australian history.
As a surgeon and naturalist for the New Zealand Company, Ernst Dieffenbach (1811-55) travelled widely in the North Island between 1839 and 1841. He was the first European to successfully scale Mount Egmont (or Taranaki), and he also visited the natural wonders of the Pink and White Terraces at Lake Rotomahana, which were later destroyed in a volcanic eruption. First published in 1843, this two-volume work describes the landscapes, flora and fauna in a highly readable style. In Volume 1, Dieffenbach recounts his sea journeys through Cook Strait and Queen Charlotte Sound, along with his excursions deep into the North Island. There is also a thorough account of his ambitious climb to the snowy summit of Mount Egmont. His passages relating to the people he encountered also give an insight into the lives of the native islanders. This volume includes illustrations of Lake Taupo, Mount Egmont and Mount Ruapehu.
As a surgeon and naturalist for the New Zealand Company, Ernst Dieffenbach (1811-55) travelled widely in the North Island between 1839 and 1841. He was the first European to successfully scale Mount Egmont (or Taranaki), and he also visited the natural wonders of the Pink and White Terraces at Lake Rotomahana, which were later destroyed in a volcanic eruption. First published in 1843, this two-volume work describes the landscapes, flora and fauna in a highly readable style. Volume 2 focuses on the Maori inhabitants of the island, for whom Dieffenbach had a respect and admiration that was unusual for the time. He writes about their customs, such as hunting techniques, burial practices and the tradition of facial tattooing. He also provides examples of Maori language, including songs and simple phrases. The final section of the work comprises a short grammar and dictionary.
Illicit Love is a history of love, sex, and marriage between Indigenous peoples and settler citizens at the heart of two settler colonial nations, the United States and Australia. Award-winning historian Ann McGrath illuminates interracial relationships from the late eighteenth to the early twentieth century through stories of romance, courtship, and marriage between Indigenous peoples and colonizers in times of nation formation. Illicit Love reveals how marriage itself was used by disparate parties for both empowerment and disempowerment and how it came to embody the contradictions of imperialism. A tour de force of settler colonial history, McGrath's study demonstrates vividly how interracial relationships between Indigenous and colonizing peoples were more frequent and threatening to nation-states in the Atlantic and the Pacific worlds than historians have previously acknowledged.
A successful journalist, naturalist and author, James Drummond (1869-1940) began his biography of Richard John Seddon (1845-1906), New Zealand's prime minister, while his subject was still alive and in office. Originally intended as a collaborative effort, the work had to be completed without further assistance following Seddon's sudden death on a voyage from Australia to Auckland in June 1906. It was published in 1907, along lines 'that Mr Seddon approved of', and with an introduction by the prime minister at the time, Sir Joseph Ward. A popular figure, Seddon led his party to victory at five successive general elections. The book traces his life from his English childhood, through his emigration and entry into politics, to his last days, charting the achievements, personality and beliefs of New Zealand's longest-serving prime minister to date, and shedding light on the history of the Liberal Party.
In 1938, the anthropologist Norman Tindale gave a classroom of young Aboriginal children a set of crayons and asked them to draw. The children, residents of the government-run Aboriginal station Cummeragunja, mostly drew pictures of aspects of white civilization boats, houses and flowers. What now to make of their artwork? Were the children encouraged or pressured to draw non-Aboriginal scenes, or did they draw freely, appropriating the white culture they now lived within? Did their Aboriginality change the meaning of their art, as they sketched out this ubiquitous colonial imagery? Australian Settler Colonialism and the Cummeragunja Aboriginal Station traces Cummeragunja's history from its establishment in the 1880s to its mass walk-off in 1939 and finally, to the 1960s, when its residents regained greater control over the land. Taking in oral history traditions, the author reveals the competing interests of settler governments, scientific and religious organizations, and nearby settler communities. The nature of these interests has broad and important implications for understanding settler colonial history. This history shows white people set boundaries on Aboriginal behaviour and movement, through direct legislation and the provision of opportunities and acceptance. But Aboriginal people had agency within and, at times, beyond these limits. Aboriginal people appropriated aspects of white culture including the houses, the flowers and the boats that their children drew for Tindale - reshaping them into new tools for Aboriginal society, tools with which to build lives and futures in a changed environment.
The last book in a trilogy of explorations on space and time from a preeminent scholar, The Boundless Sea is Gary Y. Okihiro's most innovative yet. Whereas Okihiro's previous books, Island World and Pineapple Culture, sought to deconstruct islands and continents, tropical and temperate zones, this book interrogates the assumed divides between space and time, memoir and history, and the historian and the writing of history. Okihiro uses himself-from Okinawan roots, growing up on a sugar plantation in Hawai'i, researching in Botswana, and teaching in California-to reveal the historian's craft involving diverse methodologies and subject matters. Okihiro's imaginative narrative weaves back and forth through decades and across vast spatial and societal differences, theorized as historical formations, to critique history's conventions. Taking its title from a translation of the author's surname, The Boundless Sea is a deeply personal and reflective volume that challenges how we think about time and space, notions of history.
The British journalist and mining expert John Baptist Austin (1827-96) moved to Adelaide as a young man with his family. During the 1850s he became closely involved in the South Australian mining industry and the gold rush in Victoria. Austin was rewarded for his outstanding expertise and became secretary of several corporations, including the Adelaide and West Kanmantoo mining companies. His extensive knowledge is reflected in this work, first published in 1863. Offering a first-hand account of South Australian mining culture, it contains a great many descriptions of individual mines along with details of the everyday life of the miners. The book also provides insight into the region's Cornish mining heritage: many mines were named 'Wheal', family names such as 'Rodda' are mentioned, and direct comparisons of the mineralogy and the regulations for mineral prospecting are made.
Braided Waters sheds new light on the relationship between environment and society by charting the history of Hawaii's Molokai island over a thousand-year period of repeated settlement. From the arrival of the first Polynesians to contact with eighteenth-century European explorers and traders to our present era, this study shows how the control of resources-especially water-in a fragile, highly variable environment has had profound effects on the history of Hawaii. Wade Graham examines the ways environmental variation repeatedly shapes human social and economic structures and how, in turn, man-made environmental degradation influences and reshapes societies. A key finding of this study is how deep structures of place interact with distinct cultural patterns across different societies to produce similar social and environmental outcomes, in both the Polynesian and modern eras-a case of historical isomorphism with profound implications for global environmental history.
This groundbreaking study understands the 'long history' of human rights in Australia from the moment of their supposed invention in the 1940s to official incorporation into the Australian government bureaucracy in the 1980s. To do so, a wide cast of individuals, institutions and publics from across the political spectrum are surveyed, who translated global ideas into local settings and made meaning of a foreign discourse to suit local concerns and predilections. These individuals created new organisations to spread the message of human rights or found older institutions amenable to their newfound concerns, adopting rights language with a mixture of enthusiasm and opportunism. Governments, on the other hand, engaged with or ignored human rights as its shifting meanings, international currency and domestic reception ebbed and flowed. Finally, individuals understood and (re)translated human rights ideas throughout this period: writing letters, books or poems and sympathising in new, global ways.
In November 1806, the damaged Port-au-Prince arrived at what Captain Cook had called the Friendly Islands. William Charles Mariner (1791-1853) was among the few crew members spared by the native inhabitants. He lived there for four years. Published in 1818, this two-volume second edition offers an important early insight into Tongan customs and language. As editor John Martin (1789-1869) explains, the structure of a nation's language is vital to the consideration of its history. So successful was the first edition of 1817 - expanded upon here to include 'generally corroborative, and in a few instances somewhat corrective' information from another erstwhile inhabitant - that within months of its publication a French translation appeared; German and American editions soon followed. Volume 1 comprises Martin's extensive introduction, the story of the ship's voyage and destruction, and an account of Mariner's stay on the islands and the events leading to his departure.
In November 1806, the damaged Port-au-Prince arrived at what Captain Cook had called the Friendly Islands. William Charles Mariner (1791-1853) was among the few crew members spared by the native inhabitants. He lived there for four years. Published in 1818, this two-volume second edition offers an important early insight into Tongan customs and language. As editor John Martin (1789-1869) explains, the structure of a nation's language is vital to the consideration of its history. So successful was the first edition of 1817 - expanded upon here to include 'generally corroborative, and in a few instances somewhat corrective' information from another erstwhile inhabitant - that within months of its publication a French translation appeared; German and American editions soon followed. Volume 2 covers diverse aspects of Tongan society, from its music to notions of the soul, and includes a detailed grammar of the language and 2,000 words of vocabulary.
The famous explorer of the Arctic region, Sir John Franklin (1786 1847) was appointed Governor of the penal colony of Tasmania (then known as Van Diemen's Land) in 1837. At first enthusiastically welcomed by the free colonists of the island, Franklin quickly became embroiled in political and administrative difficulties, and his compassion for convicts and aboriginals alike was incompatible with his duties. In 1843, colonial officials loyal to his predecessor succeeded in getting Franklin recalled by sending damaging accounts of his conduct to London. This pamphlet was Franklin's defence of his own character against these misrepresentations, but he was not to see his reputation recovered. He completed the book on 15 May 1845, just days before he departed on another Arctic expedition to search for the North-West Passage. Franklin and his entire crew died on the journey, and only many years later was the tragic fate of the expedition discovered.
For a British Empire that stretched across much of the globe at the start of the nineteenth century, the interiors of Africa and Australia remained intriguing mysteries. The challenge of opening these continents to imperial influence fell to a proto-professional coterie of determined explorers. They sought knowledge, adventure, and fame, but often experienced confusion, fear, and failure. The Last Blank Spaces follows the arc of these explorations, from idea to practice, from intention to outcome, from myth to reality. Those who conducted the hundreds of expeditions that probed Africa and Australia in the nineteenth century adopted a mode of scientific investigation that had been developed by previous generations of seaborne explorers. They likened the two continents to oceans, empty spaces that could be made truly knowable only by mapping, measuring, observing, and preserving. They found, however, that their survival and success depended less on this system of universal knowledge than it did on the local knowledge possessed by native peoples. While explorers sought to advance the interests of Britain and its emigrant communities, Dane Kennedy discovers a more complex outcome: expeditions that failed ignominiously, explorers whose loyalties proved ambivalent or divided, and, above all, local states and peoples who diverted expeditions to serve their own purposes. The collisions, and occasional convergences, between British and indigenous values, interests, and modes of knowing the world are brought to the fore in this fresh and engaging study.
Andrew Dilley offers a major new study of financial dependence, examining the connections this dependence forged between the City and political life in Edwardian Australia and Canada, mediated by ideas of political economy. In doing so he reconstructs the occasionally imperialistic politic of finance which pervaded the British World at this time.
Arthur Cornwallis Evans (1860 1935) was chaplain on the steamship HMS Calliope on a three-year voyage to Asia and Australia (January 1887 to April 1890) that covered 76,814 nautical miles (88,395 miles), with more than 500 days spent at sea. He compiled this lively account of the voyage at the request of his shipmates, drawing information from several of their journals, and published it in Portsmouth in 1890 before the crew dispersed. It contains both brief factual entries about the progress of the voyage and more sustained descriptions of life on board ship and in port, including some naval culinary 'delicacies', an encounter with a robber in Hong Kong, the Russian foritifications at Vladivostok, fireworks in Sydney celebrating the centenary of New South Wales, the opening of Calliope Dock in Auckland (still in use today), visits to several Pacific islands, cricket matches and regattas, and an eclipse of the sun."
This two-volume work by Captain Phillip Parker King (1791-1856) was published in 1827, and describes the Royal Navy's 1817-22 surveying expedition to chart the coastal regions of Australia. King carried out the surveys in two successive ships, the Mermaid, which was declared unseaworthy in 1820, and the newly commissioned Bathurst. He worked on the charts, which were published by the Hydrographic Office, for two years after his return to England. He was made a Fellow of the Royal Society, and later undertook a similar surveying voyage, in which he was accompanied by Captain Fitzroy on the Beagle, around the coast of South America. The book is derived from the author's journal, and describes not only the voyages but also the towns and settlements and the natural history of the region, often making comparisons with Captain Cook's account. Volume 1 covers the south, east and north coasts of Australia.
This two-volume work by Captain Phillip Parker King (1791-1856) was published in 1827, and describes the Royal Navy's 1817-22 surveying expedition to chart the coastal regions of Australia. King carried out the surveys in two successive ships, the Mermaid, which was declared unseaworthy in 1820, and the newly commissioned Bathurst. He worked on the charts, which were published by the Hydrographic Office, for two years after his return to England. He was made a Fellow of the Royal Society, and later undertook a similar surveying voyage, in which he was accompanied by Captain Fitzroy on the Beagle, around the coast of South America. The book is derived from the author's journal, and describes not only the voyages but also the towns and settlements of the region. Volume 2 continues the survey along the north and west coasts of Australia, and contains an appendix describing winds, currents, ports and islands.
Published in 1912 as part of the Cambridge Historical Series, this is the third edition of The History of the Australasian Colonies. Created with the general reader in mind, it provides a concise, yet rigorous, analysis of historical developments in Australasia and contextualises these developments in terms of the later political situation at the beginning of the twentieth century. Whilst the narrative is undoubtedly redolent of the colonial period, it retains a high documentary value in revealing the attitudes of the time in which it was written. The text of the this edition was considerably revised from the 1895 original, and events are detailed up to the year 1911, thus encompassing the movement towards federation in Australia. This is a fascinating book that will be of value to anyone with an interest in the colonial period, Australasian history, and historiography. |
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