This is an important book. It is a reprint of the first detailed study of how Pacific Islanders responded politically and economically to their rulers across the German empire of the Pacific. Under one cover, it captures the variety of interactions between the various German colonial administrations, with their separate approaches, and the leaders and people of Samoa in Polynesia, the major island centre of Pohnpei in Micronesia and the indigenes of New Guinea. Drawing on anthropology, new Pacific history insights and a range of theoretical works on African and Asian resistance from the 1960s and 1970s, it reveals the complexities of Islander reactions and the nature of protests against German imperial rule. It casts aside old assumptions that colonised peoples always resisted European colonisers. Instead, this book argues convincingly that Islander responses were often intelligent and subtle manipulations of their rulers’ agendas, their societies dynamic enough to make their own adjustments to the demands of empire. It does not shy away from major blunders by German colonial administrators, nor from the strategic and tactical mistakes of Islander leaders. At the same time, it raises the profile of several large personalities on both sides of the colonial frontier, including Lauaki Namulau’ulu Mamoe and Wilhelm Solf in Samoa; Henry Nanpei, Georg Fritz and Karl Boeder in Pohnpei; or Governor Albert Hahl and Po Minis from Manus Island in New Guinea.

Worldly Provincialism introduces readers to the intellectual history that drove the emergence of German anthropology. Drawing on the most recent work on the history of the discipline, the contributors rethink the historical and cultural connections between German anthropology, colonialism, and race. By showing that German intellectual traditions differed markedly from those of Western Europe, they challenge the prevalent assumption that Europeans abroad shared a common cultural code and behaved similarly toward non-Europeans. The eloquent and well-informed essays in this volume demonstrate that early German anthropology was fueled by more than a simple colonialist drive. Rather, a wide range of intellectual history shaped the Germans' rich and multifarious interest in the cultures, religions, physiognomy, physiology, and history of non-Europeans, and gave rise to their desire to connect with the wider world. Furthermore, this volume calls for a more nuanced understanding of Germany's standing in postcolonial studies. In contrast to the prevailing view of German imperialism as a direct precursor to Nazi atrocities, this volume proposes a key insight that goes to the heart of German historiography: There is no clear trajectory to be drawn from the complex ideologies of imperial anthropology to the race science embraced by the Nazis. Instead of relying on a nineteenth-century explanation for twentieth-century crimes, this volume ultimately illuminates German ethnology and anthropology as local phenomena, best approached in terms of their own worldly provincialism. H. Glenn Penny is Assistant Professor of History at the University of Missouri, Kansas City. Matti Bunzl Assistant Professor of Anthropology and History at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign.

"Hezel has written an authoritative and engaging narrative of [a] succession of colonial regimes, drawing upon a broad range of published and archival sources as well as his own considerable knowledge of the region. This is a ‘conventional’ history, and a very good one, focused mostly on political and economic developments. Hezel demonstrates a fine understanding of the complicated relations between administrators, missionaries, traders, chiefs and commoners, in a wide range of social and historical settings." —Pacific Affairs "The tale [of Strangers in Their Own Land] is one of interplay between four sequential colonial regimes (Spain Germany, Japan, and the United States) and the diverse island cultures they governed. It is also a tale of relationships among islands whose inhabitants did not always see eye-to-eye and among individuals who fought private and public battles in those islands. Hezel conveys both the unity of purpose exerted by a colonial government and the subversion of that purpose by administrators, teachers, islands, and visitors.... [The] history is thoroughly supported by archival materials, first-person testimonies, and secondary sources. Hezel acknowledges the power of the visual when he ends his book by describing the distinctive flags that now replace Spanish, German, Japanese, and American symbols of rule. the scene epitomizes a theme of the book: global political and economic forces, whether colonial or post-colonial, cannot erode the distinctiveness each island claims."—American Historical Review

This edited volume explores social, economic, political, and cultural practices generated by African, Asian, and Oceanic individuals and groups within the context and aftermath of German colonialism. The volume contributes to current debates on transnational and intercultural processes while highlighting the ways in which the colonial period is embedded in larger processes of globalization.

A no-holds-barred account of how German society struggles with its colonial legacy.

Tautai is the story of a man who came from the edge of a mighty empire and then challenged it at its very heart. This biography of Ta’isi O. F. Nelson chronicles the life of a man described as the “archenemy” of New Zealand and its greater whole, the British Empire. He was Sāmoa’s richest man who used his wealth and unique international access to further the Sāmoan cause and was financially ruined in the process. In the aftermath of the hyper-violence of the First World War, Ta’isi embraced nonviolent resistance as a means to combat a colonial surge in the Pacific that gripped his country for nearly two decades. This surge was manned by heroes of New Zealand’s war campaign, who attempted to hold the line against the groundswell of challenges to the imperial order in the former German colony of Sāmoa that became a League of Nations mandate in 1921. Stillborn Sāmoan hopes for greater freedoms under this system precipitated a crisis of empire. It led Ta’isi on global journeys in search of justice taking him to Geneva, the League of Nations headquarters, and into courtrooms in Sāmoa, New Zealand, and the United Kingdom. Ta’isi ran a global campaign of letter writing, petitions, and a newspaper to get his people’s plight heard. For his efforts he was imprisoned and exiled not once but twice from his homeland of Sāmoa. Using private papers and interviews, O’Brien tells a deeply compelling account of Ta’isi’s life lived through turbulent decades. By following Ta’isi’s story readers also learn a history of Sāmoa’s Mau movement that attracted international attention. The author’s care for detail provides a nuanced interpretation of its history and Ta’isi’s role in the broader context of world history. The first biography of Ta’isi O. F. Nelson, Tautai is a powerful and passionate story that is both personal and one that encircles the globe. It touches on shared histories and causes that have animated and enraged populations across the world throughout the twentieth century to the present day.