Table of contents : Contents Acknowledgments The Text in Its Context: An Introduction Part I. General Regional 1. Fatal Choices? Morrell’s and Scarr’s Imperial Histories 2. On Douglas Oliver’s The Pacific Islands 3. Oskar Spate’s Trilogy 4. Where theWaves Fall—or, Playing the Generalist Game Part II. Methodologies 5. Voyagers and Navigators: The Sharp-Lewis Debate 6. The Evolution of Marshall Sahlins 7. Revisioning the Pacific: Bernard Smith in the South Seas 8. More Celebrated than Read: TheWork of Norma McArthur 9. Two Pacific Biographies: Hubert Murray and Father Damien Part III. Activities 10. The Missionary Position: Messengers of Grace and TheWorks of Ta’unga 11. Of Islands and Sandalwood: Shineberg, Maude, and the Hidden History of Trade 12. Unsettling New Zealand History: The Revisionism of Sinclair and Ward 13. Passage across the Sea: Indentured Labor to Fiji and from the Solomons 14. Trumpet and Road: Two Classic Cargo Texts Part IV. Island Groups 15. Living in Archives and Dreams: The Histories of Kuykendall and Daws 16. On Hezel’s The First Taint of Civilization 17. On Greg Dening’s Islands and Beaches 18. Disentangling Samoan History: The Contributions of Gilson and Davidson 19. The Last Unknown: Gavin Souter and the Historiography of New Guinea Contributors Index