These volumes present a comprehensive survey of the history of the Pacific Ocean, an area making up around one third of the Earth's surface, from initial human colonization to the present day. Reflecting a wide range of cultural and disciplinary perspectives, this two-volume work details different ways of telling and viewing history in a Pacific world of exceptionally diverse cultural traditions, over time spans that require multidisciplinary and multicultural collaborative perspectives. The central importance of nations touched by the Pacific in contemporary world affairs cannot be understood without recourse to the deep history of interactions on and across the Pacific. In reflecting the diversity and dynamism of the societies of this blue hemisphere, these volumes seek to enhance world histories and broaden readers' perspectives on forms of historical knowledge and expression. Volume I explores the history of the Pacific Ocean pre-1800 and Volume II examines the period from 1800 to the present day.

Volume II of The Cambridge History of the Pacific Ocean focuses on the latest era of Pacific history, examining the period from 1800 to the present day. This volume discusses advances and emerging trends in the historiography of the colonial era, before outlining the main themes of the twentieth century when the idea of a Pacific-centred century emerged. It concludes by exploring how history and the past inform preparations for the emerging challenges of the future. These essays emphasise the importance of understanding how the postcolonial period shaped the modern Pacific and its historians.

A variety of cross-cultural collisions and collusions—sometimes amusing, sometimes tragic, but always complex—resulted from the U.S. Navy’s introduction of Western health and sanitation practices to Guam’s native population. In Colonial Dis-Ease, Anne Perez Hattori examines early twentieth-century U.S. military colonialism through the lens of Western medicine and its cultural impact on the Chamorro people. In four case studies, Hattori considers the histories of Chamorro leprosy patients exiled to Culion Leper Colony in the Philippines, hookworm programs for children, the regulation of native midwives and nurses, and the creation and operation of the Susana Hospital for women and children. Changes to Guam’s traditional systems of health and hygiene placed demands not only on Chamorro bodies, but also on their cultural values, social relationships, political controls, and economic expectations. Hattori effectively demonstrates that the new health projects signified more than a benevolent interest in hygiene and the philanthropic sharing of medical knowledge. Rather the navy’s health care regime in Guam was an important vehicle through which U.S. colonial power and moral authority over Chamorros was introduced and entrenched. Medical experts, navy doctors, and health care workers asserted their scientific knowledge as well as their administrative might and in the process became active participants in the colonization of Guam.