This volume provides an accessible scientific introduction to the historical geography of Tropical Pacific Islands, assessing the environmental and cultural changes they have undergone and how they are affected currently by these shifts and alterations. The book emphasizes the roles of plants, animals, people, and the environment in shaping the tropical Pacific through a cross-disciplinary approach involving history, geography, biology, environmental science, and anthropology. With these diverse scientific perspectives, the eight chapters of the book provide a comprehensive overview of Tropical Pacific Islands from their initial colonization by native peoples to their occupation by colonial powers, and the contemporary changes that have affected the natural history and social fabric of these islands. The Tropical Pacific Islands are introduced by a description of their geological formation, development, and geography. From there, the book details the origins of the island's original peoples and the dawn of the political economy of these islands, including the domestication and trade of plants, animals, and other natural resources. Next, readers will learn about the impact of missionaries on Pacific Islands, and the affects of Wold War II and nuclear testing on natural resources and the health of its people. The final chapter discusses the islands in the context of natural resource extraction, population increases, and global climate change. Working together these factors are shown to affect rainfall and limited water resources, as well as the ability to sustain traditional crops, and the capacity of the islands to accomodate its residents.

Both authors are ideally suited to prepare this book, offering a nice mix of biological and geological expertise on coral reef systems. There is a glaring gap in the market for this book - there is no literature or database that comprehensively summarises the latest remote sensing imagery for global atolls. There is no comparable book. The treatment employs state-of-the-art satellite imagery and updates the existing Atlas of Coral Reefs by Spalding et al which came out more than 20 years ago. Atolls are a favorite topic of research in the biological/ecological and geological sciences due to their unusual ring-like reef form and their laboratory-like, isolated settings. The great strength and contribution of this book is the comprehensive analysis and summary of all these different atolls and their main characteristics in one place. The writing is excellent, striking a nice balance between providing enough detail while also being accessible to a general reader. A useful resource for a range of higher education courses, undergraduate and masters level courses i.e., coastal processes and environments, coral reefs and climate change, oceans coasts and climate. One reviewer says: "This is a superb volume, which I suspect will be much referred to. The authors a pre-eminent in this, and it will be authoritative as well as useful to a wide range of people."