Pacific Worlds: A History of Seas, Peoples, and Cultures

by Matt K. Matsuda

Asia, the Pacific Islands and the coasts of the Americas have long been studied separately. This essential single-volume history of the Pacific traces the global interactions and remarkable peoples that have connected these regions with each other and with Europe and the Indian Ocean, for millennia. From ancient canoe navigators, monumental civilisations, pirates and seaborne empires, to the rise of nuclear testing and global warming, Matt Matsuda ranges across the frontiers of colonial history, anthropology and Pacific Rim economics and politics, piecing together a history of the region. The book identifies and draws together the defining threads and extraordinary personal narratives which have contributed to this history, showing how localised contacts and contests have often blossomed into global struggles over colonialism, tourism and the rise of Asian economies. Drawing on Asian, Oceanian, European, American, ancient and modern narratives, the author assembles a fascinating Pacific region from a truly global perspective.

Genres: History, Nonfiction, World History, Politics, Anthropology, Ancient History, Prehistory

453 pages, Kindle Edition

First published January 19, 2012

Reviews

[Ali]

A surprisingly effective and affecting book, Matsuda's sprawling narrative traces the story of Pasifika peoples from pre-history through to the last decade. At the risk of overstretching my own writing abilities, Matsuda's writing ebbs and flows a bit like the sea itself - his chapters take you through themed stories and events, moving slowly through time, ebbing back and forth on the way, and bringing you to connected. Frequently, in fact almost inevitably, the narrative suddenly takes you somewhere you didn't expect - from the Tampa to the Vietnam War for example. If you have read Zinn's Peoples History of the United States, the structures are similar. If you want to progress from A to B with a clear understanding of how and why everything happened between the points and to keep the points in a clear order (and I tend towards the linear), it's a frustrating experience. When I finally gave up, however, and just let the book take me where it wanted to go, however, it started to become magical. The narrative is never forced, and Matsuda succeeds in conveying the interconnections and seperations through the structure as well as the words. What I ended up with as a result was both a head full of facts, and a less definable sense of *place* and community.
The Pacific that emerges is a place of longstanding culture and relationships, which shape newcomers just as new arrivals bring changes themselves, and those changes are incorporated into broader Asia-Pacific culture. My knowledge of pacific and Asia-Pacific events tends to be limited to the individual country or event, and reading this gave me much more of a sense of the tapestry within which those events occurred, laughing at the kind of isolated understanding I thought I had had.
In the end, the book succeeds in providing context, and in profiling a resilient, complex and fascinating group of peoples, telling enough of their stories so you can glimpse something true - zooming around patches of an intricate tapestry or sea on a journey from one end to the other, without remotely claiming to show you the 'whole', but nonetheless taking you from one end to the other.

[Amanda Leavitt]

This book was assigned to read as part of my History of the Pacific class and I thought it was extremely interesting. This book gives an overview of the history of all of the different sections of the Pacific ranging from Alaska and Kamchatka, to the islands, down towards Chile and South America. What I really liked was his story telling, he didn't just recite facts to his readers but used different accounts in the pacific to tie everything together. There was never really a time that I was bored or lost interest. Very well done!

[Thomas Ray]

Pacific Worlds, Matt Matsuda, 2012, 436 pages, ISBN 9780521715669, Library-of-Congress DU28.3 M34 2012
College Library Rm. 1191: https://search.library.wisc.edu/catal...

Vague, scattered, flowery.

From Asia, we go toward the Pacific islands through the Strait of Malacca, south of the Malay Peninsula, east of Sumatra. pp. 4, 5, 55. Or from Taiwan, China, and the Philippines. pp. 14, 20, 30.

Easter, 1722: a Dutch ship landed on Easter Island. The people had destroyed their forests and animals, and were fighting each other. pp. 130-132.

Britain transported 160,000 convicts to Australia, 1788-1868. p. 165. 1789, smallpox killed many Aboriginals. p. 169.

[James]

An ambitious - and successful - overview of the history of the Pacific, it's islands, countries and peoples. Rather than focus down on one country's history at a time, Matsuda is pretty successful in working with broad themes such as colonialism or economic exploitation to work through the histories in a series of contrasts and parallels.

Daunting in scope--he includes a fair bit on China, Japan, Australia and New Zealand along with the many island nations--he ultimately succeeds in giving a flavor of the gifts, challenges, stories and heartbreaks of this important part of the world.

[AskHistorians]

A large-scale, long-term history of Oceania that attempts to link Oceania's pasts and presents with Asia.

[Raquel]

As I am looking for a true account of Samoan History, my reviews on all history books of the Pacific will be dismal as there is hardly any mention of Samoa in most. This has one chapter.

[Sara]

I don't have enough shelves to cover everything Matsuda packs into this wonderful volume. Essentially, he traces the history of the islands and coastal regions of the Pacific Ocean from their peopling and into the 21st century. This expansive project necessarily ends up being a history of globalism that touches basically every other region of the world in some fashion, through imperialism, politics, economics, tourism, or all of the above.

Pacific Worlds is humane, informative, and written with great clarity. I primarily left this book starting to understand how ignorant I've been of Pacific history and its deep connectivity with the rest of the world. I recommend to any history buff or curious reader.

[Gianluca Fiore]

Great book. Complete, from early history to recent developments, it not only encompasses Pacific Islands but also nearby areas like South-East Asia, Australia, New Zealand, and touches China and Japan.

[Alisha G]

It's like that class in college that was full of really fascinating information but I still had trouble staying awake.

[Mac]

Fascinating, but a touch meandering and didn’t hold my attention. At times too many facts, people, places, and random anecdote. Slog aside, I learned a ton about this part of the world.

[Scott]

Draws in the history of and interactions between a huge number of different peoples and states. It's really helpful to think about the Pacific as a historical region.