"The first comprehensive volume to bring together the histories of the Pacific Islands, the Pacific Rim and the Pacific Ocean. A distinguished international team of historians provides a multidimensional account of the Pacific, its inhabitants and the lands within and around it -- from the first human migrations to the present. The book covers the Pacific from Russia to Antarctica and from Southeast Asia to Central America, with focused attention on the peoples of Oceania. It introduces the Pacific's multiple pasts, before examining major themes in Pacific history: the connections created by the environment, migration and the economy; religious, legal and scientific ways of knowing; and the identities expressed in ideas and practices of race, gender and politics"--Page [i].

Includes primary source material.