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Title details for Paradise Past by Robert W. Kirk - Available

Paradise Past

by Robert W. Kirk
ebook
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In the 400 years from Magellan's entrance into Pacific waters to 1920, the lives of the people of the South Pacific were utterly transformed. Exotic diseases from Europe and America, particularly the worldwide influenza pandemic, were deadly for islanders. Ardent missionaries changed the belief systems and lives of nearly all Polynesians, Aborigines, and those Papuans and Melanesians living in areas accessible to westerners. By 1920 every island and atoll in the South Seas had been claimed as a colony or protectorate of a power such as Britain, France or the United States. Factors aiding this imperial sweep included European outposts such as Sydney, advances in maritime technology, the work of missionaries, a desire to profit from the area's relatively sparse resources, and international rivalry that led to the scramble for colonies. The coming of westerners, as this book points out, was not entirely negative, as head-hunting, cannibalism, chronic warfare, human sacrifice, and other practices were diminished—but whole cultures were irreversibly changed or even eradicated.
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Publisher: McFarland & Company, Inc., Publishers

Kindle Book

  • Release date: November 8, 2012

OverDrive Read

  • ISBN: 9780786492985
  • Release date: November 8, 2012

PDF ebook

  • ISBN: 9780786492985
  • File size: 3144 KB
  • Release date: November 8, 2012

Formats

Kindle Book
OverDrive Read
PDF ebook
Kindle restrictions

subjects

History Nonfiction

Languages

English

In the 400 years from Magellan's entrance into Pacific waters to 1920, the lives of the people of the South Pacific were utterly transformed. Exotic diseases from Europe and America, particularly the worldwide influenza pandemic, were deadly for islanders. Ardent missionaries changed the belief systems and lives of nearly all Polynesians, Aborigines, and those Papuans and Melanesians living in areas accessible to westerners. By 1920 every island and atoll in the South Seas had been claimed as a colony or protectorate of a power such as Britain, France or the United States. Factors aiding this imperial sweep included European outposts such as Sydney, advances in maritime technology, the work of missionaries, a desire to profit from the area's relatively sparse resources, and international rivalry that led to the scramble for colonies. The coming of westerners, as this book points out, was not entirely negative, as head-hunting, cannibalism, chronic warfare, human sacrifice, and other practices were diminished—but whole cultures were irreversibly changed or even eradicated.
Expand title description text
History Nonfiction