Ian Campbell’s History of the Pacific Islands, first published in 1989, served this purpose for many years, and its successor, Worlds Apart, has proven to be equally serviceable, bringing into focus the past and present of this diverse and endlessly misunderstood region.
This concise and readable narrative has now been revised to bring the story of the island world – from its
first settlement by raft and canoe voyagers, through the period of western contact and acculturation – up to 2010.
As with its earlier versions, this book has been written not for fellow academics, but for the many people who want to know ‘what happened’.
Ian Campbell graduated with first-class honours in history from the University of New England, Australia, and a PhD from the University of Adelaide. He has worked at a number of universities in the Pacific, and in archives around the world, building up the expertise that lies behind this book. For many years he taught history at the University of Canterbury in New Zealand, and was later Professor of History & Politics at the University of the South Pacific in Fiji.
The current revision was undertaken while he was a visiting research professor at Kagoshima University, Japan.
