In Oceania by Nicholas Thomas - 9780822319986

In OceaniaVisions, Artifacts, Histories\nAuthor(s): Nicholas Thomas\nFormat: Paperback\nPublisher: Duke University Press, United States\nImprint: Duke University Press\nISBN-13: 9780822319986, 978-0822319986\nSynopsis\nIn this collection of essays, Nicholas Thomas, a leading theorist of historical anthropology, explores the historicization of cultural encounters in the region referred to as Oceania. Basing his claims on wide-ranging historical and ethnographic research and building on his celebrated studies of exchange and colonialism in the Pacific, Thomas describes how outsiders and islanders alike have constructed indigenous cultures over the last two hundred years. \nIn Oceania documents and analyzes the \""rhetorical artifacts\"" of explorers, missionaries, fiction and travel writers, and the people of the Pacific themselves to illustrate how Oceanic identities have been represented over time. Not content with conventional methods of anthropology or history, Thomas draws on postco.