Nature, Culture, and History : The 'Knowing' of Oceania

This Text Places Oceania In A Broad Global And Intellectual Context And Explores The Meeting Of Two Perceived Entities - The West And Pacific Peoples. It Incorporates Such Diverse Topics As Notions Of Paradise, Human Destiny, Technology, Knowing, Colonialism, Racism, Gender, And More. Introduction -- Nature As Culture -- Culture As Nature -- History As Culture. K.r. Howe. Rev. And Extended Versions Of The Three Lectures Presented At Massey University, Palmerston North And Albany Campuses, In 1997, As The Macmillan Brown Lectures, Organized By The Macmillan Brown Centre For Pacific Studies At The University Of Canterbury. Includes Bibliographical References (p. 103-115) And Index. Explores the changing ways in which Pacific Islanders have been seen and represented by outsiders over the last 200 years. The Pacific Islands has been a testing ground for various Western ideas and ideologies and the author looks at this long intellectual history as an artifact of the Western imagination. Of particular concern is to see how concepts of nature, culture and history have defined Western perceptions of Pacific Islanders.