"Islands and Empires "was first published in 1976. Minnesota Archive Editions uses digital technology to make long-unavailable books once again accessible, and are published unaltered from the original University of Minnesota Press editions. This is the first one-volume account of the massive impact of Western civilization on the Pacific Islands and the Far East, principally China and Japan. The effects on the two areas were very different since, in the case of the islands, contact was with peoples who were still in the Stone Age, while in the Far East Westerners came up against sophisticated civilizations more ancient and mature than their own. Because of these differences, the book is divided into two sections, the first dealing with the Pacific Islands and the second with the East Asian mainland. Reverse influences--those of the Eastern cultures on the West--are also discussed.

This volume examines the various ways in which islands (and groups of islands) contributed to the establishment, extension, and maintenance of the British Empire in the age of sail.

Through a detailed unpacking of the castaway genre’s appeal in English literature, Empire Islands forwards our understanding of the sociopsychology of British Empire. Rebecca Weaver-Hightower argues convincingly that by helping generations of readers to make sense of—and perhaps feel better about—imperial aggression, the castaway story in effect enabled the expansion and maintenance of European empire. Empire Islands asks why so many colonial authors chose islands as the setting for their stories of imperial adventure and why so many postcolonial writers “write back” to those island castaway narratives. Drawing on insightful readings of works from Thomas More’s Utopia to Caribbean novels like George Lamming’s Water with Berries, from canonical works such as Robinson Crusoe and The Tempest to the lesser-known A Narrative of the Life and Astonishing Adventures of John Daniel by Ralph Morris, Weaver-Hightower examines themes of cannibalism, piracy, monstrosity, imperial aggression, and the concept of going native. Ending with analysis of contemporary film and the role of the United States in global neoimperialism, Weaver-Hightower exposes how island narratives continue not only to describe but to justify colonialism. Rebecca Weaver-Hightower is assistant professor of English and postcolonial studies at the University of North Dakota.

Based on a decade of research, The Empires' Edge examines the tremendous damage the militarization of the Pacific has wrought and contends that the great political contest of the twenty-first century is about the choice between domination or the pursuit of a more egalitarian and cooperative future.

A pioneering examination of the role smuggling played in the transformation of Spanish Caribbean society and culture in the seventeenth century.