Voyagers

April 26, 2021
Cambridge University anthropologist Thomas (Islanders: The Pacific in the Age of Empire) delivers a brisk and intriguing account of how the islands of Oceania came to be inhabited by humans. He begins by documenting the first contacts between Pacific islanders and European explorers including James Cook, who documented linguistic and cultural affinities between the inhabitants of islands thousands of miles apart. Contending that 19th-century maps dividing the Pacific Ocean into regions including Polynesia and Micronesia were based on “invidious and overtly racist contrasts” between natives, Thomas draws on the latest findings in archaeology, genetics, climatology, and linguistics to chronicle the settlement of present-day Australia and New Guinea by people from southeast Asia 45,000 to 50,000 years ago, and tracks the subsequent migration of their descendants across vast stretches of ocean to colonize Hawaii, the Marianas, Tahiti, and other islands and archipelagos. Throughout, Thomas highlights the work of Indigenous scholars, including Tongan anthropologist Epeli Hau‛ofa, and makes the case that the region has been more central to world affairs than is widely known. With lucid explanations of modern advances in historical anthropology and evocative reflections on the author’s own fascination with Oceania, this is an accessible introduction to an astounding chapter in human history.