Nicholas Thomas – författare

Cook's great voyages marked the end of an era in world history. As he sailed into Hawaii in January 1778 he made contact with the last of the human civilizations to grow up independently of the rest of the world. But equally for the Polynesians and Melanesians of the Pacific, Cook's arrival in their midst merely marked a further (if disastrous) twist in diverse histories already many centuries old. In this immensely enjoyable and absorbing book Cook's journeys are reimagined, attempting toleave behind (or master) our later preoccupations to let us see what Cook and his associates experienced and what the societies he encountered experienced - from the Beothuks of Newfoundland to the Tongans of the Friendly Islands.

Marquesan society has long captured the interest of European observers, in part because of unfamiliar institutions such as polyandry. However, due to complex and destructive historical changes and the very scattered nature of early source-materials, the distinctive Marquesan developments of Polynesian society have been obscure and at odds with anthropologists' and historians' overall understanding of Pacific societies.Nicholas Thomas's book, based on a critical study of the fullest possible range of sources, is the first to provide a clear account of early Marquesan social relations and culture, and as such will become a key source for Pacific scholars. However, Dr Thomas's discussion is not restricted to ethnohistoric documentation. His analysis of dynamic and highly fluid society and its encounters with early European visitors and traders encompasses wider debates about the nature of gender relations in Polynesian societies, small-scale hierarchical structures, cultural transformation, and longer-term change.In linking specific features of early Marquesan society, its contact with foreigners, and the longer-term transformations of eastern Polynesian societies, Dr Thomas offers Pacific studies a distinctive new perspective.

"As my sense of the turpitude and guilt of sin was weakened, the vices of the natives appeared less odious and criminal. After a time, I was induced to yield to their allurements, to imitate their manners, and to join them in their sins . . . and it was not long ere I disencumbered myself of my European garment, and contented myself with the native dress. . . ."—from Narrative of the late George Vason, of NottinghamAs George Vason's anguished narrative shows, European encounters with Pacific peoples often proved as wrenching to the Europeans as to the natives. This anthology gathers some of the most vivid accounts of these cultural exchanges for the first time, placing the works of well-known figures such as Captain James Cook and Robert Louis Stevenson alongside the writings of lesser-known explorers, missionaries, beachcombers, and literary travelers who roamed the South Seas from the late seventeenth through the late nineteenth centuries.Here we discover the stories of the British buccaneers and privateers who were lured to the Pacific by stories of fabulous wealth; of the scientists, cartographers, and natural historians who tried to fit the missing bits of terra incognita into a universal scheme of knowledge; and of the varied settlers who established a permanent European presence in Polynesia and Australia. Through their detailed commentary on each piece and their choice of selections, the editors—all respected scholars of the literature and cultures of the Pacific—emphasize the mutuality of impact of these colonial encounters and the continuity of Pacific cultures that still have the power to transform visitors today.

"As my sense of the turpitude and guilt of sin was weakened, the vices of the natives appeared less odious and criminal. After a time, I was induced to yield to their allurements, to imitate their manners, and to join them in their sins . . . and it was not long ere I disencumbered myself of my European garment, and contented myself with the native dress. . . ."—from Narrative of the late George Vason, of NottinghamAs George Vason's anguished narrative shows, European encounters with Pacific peoples often proved as wrenching to the Europeans as to the natives. This anthology gathers some of the most vivid accounts of these cultural exchanges for the first time, placing the works of well-known figures such as Captain James Cook and Robert Louis Stevenson alongside the writings of lesser-known explorers, missionaries, beachcombers, and literary travelers who roamed the South Seas from the late seventeenth through the late nineteenth centuries.Here we discover the stories of the British buccaneers and privateers who were lured to the Pacific by stories of fabulous wealth; of the scientists, cartographers, and natural historians who tried to fit the missing bits of terra incognita into a universal scheme of knowledge; and of the varied settlers who established a permanent European presence in Polynesia and Australia. Through their detailed commentary on each piece and their choice of selections, the editors—all respected scholars of the literature and cultures of the Pacific—emphasize the mutuality of impact of these colonial encounters and the continuity of Pacific cultures that still have the power to transform visitors today.

'A roaring tale ... remains as vivid and exciting today as it was on publication in 1697' GuardianThe pirate and adventurer William Dampier circumnavigated the globe three times, and took notes wherever he went. This is his frank, vivid account of his buccaneering sea voyages around the world, from the Caribbean to the Pacific and East Indies. Filled with accounts of raids, escapes, wrecks and storms, it also contains precise observations of people, places, animals and food (including the first English accounts of guacamole, mango chutney and chopsticks). A bestseller on publication, this unique record of the colonial age influenced Robinson Crusoe, Gulliver's Travels and consequently the whole of English literature.Edited with an Introduction by Nicholas Thomas

An incisive, evocative history of the experience of empire in the Oceanic worldThis compelling book explores the lived experience of empire in the Pacific, the last region to be contacted and colonized by Europeans following the great voyages of Captain Cook. Unlike conventional accounts that emphasize confrontation and the destruction of indigenous cultures, Islanders reveals there was gain as well as loss, survival as well as suffering, and invention as well as exploitation.Empowered by imaginative research in obscure archives and collections, Thomas rediscovers a rich and surprising history of encounters, not only between Islanders and Europeans, but among Islanders, brought together in new ways by explorers, missionaries, and colonists. He tells the story of the making of empire, not through an impersonal survey, but through vivid stories of the lives of men and women—some visionary, some vicious, and some just eccentric—and through sensuous evocation of seascapes and landscapes of the Pacific. A fascinating re-creation of an Oceanic world, Islanders offers a new paradigm, not only for histories of the Pacific, but for understandings of cultural contact everywhere.

Developments in East Asia have progressed rapidly in terms of regionalism since the 1997 crisis. The end of the Asian miracle called into question not only the capacity of regional states to meet the needs of their attendant peoples, but also challenged the viability of regional organizations, such as ASEAN, to adapt and respond to the changing circumstances. Advancing East Asian Regionalism looks at the ways in which ASEAN has expanded since the crisis, and evaluates the potential of East Asia to come together in a regional formation - one capable of representing the region as a whole - akin to the European Community. It draws upon the knowledge and perspectives of academics and policy makers actively engaged in the contradictory issues of regionalism. Coupling case study material on regionalism, institutions, and sectoral cooperation, with theoretical debates on regionalization, this book is an invaluable resource that pushes our understanding of East Asian regionalism forward.

In the decade since the Asian financial crisis the ten states of Southeast Asia that form ASEAN, together with China, Japan and South Korea have formed the basis of a community intended to support the well-being of its member states, markets and peoples. This highly successful regionalisation was not anticipated by the region’s leaders, however, and as a result, policy makers are increasingly talking about ‘meeting fatigue’ and the need to find a better way to govern regional affairs. Among the reforms being considered is a shift towards a more rules-based culture as well as the more explicit incorporation of both private sector and civil society organisations into the policy processes. In short, ASEAN+3 is seeking to develop new norms and processes for its networks and institutions.This book explores the pressures currently influencing East Asian regionalist policy debates, analysing the trend towards deeper integration and the emergence of a governance model for managing regional processes. Combining state and subnational perspectives in conjunction with an examination of the role of the business community and civil society organisations, this book highlights the policy challenges confronting regionalism and governance in East Asia, including key issues such as the rule of law, financial cooperation and a case study on disaster management.

Developments in East Asia have progressed rapidly in terms of regionalism since the 1997 crisis. The end of the Asian miracle called into question not only the capacity of regional states to meet the needs of their attendant peoples, but also challenged the viability of regional organizations, such as ASEAN, to adapt and respond to the changing circumstances. Advancing East Asian Regionalism looks at the ways in which ASEAN has expanded since the crisis, and evaluates the potential of East Asia to come together in a regional formation - one capable of representing the region as a whole - akin to the European Community. It draws upon the knowledge and perspectives of academics and policy makers actively engaged in the contradictory issues of regionalism. Coupling case study material on regionalism, institutions, and sectoral cooperation, with theoretical debates on regionalization, this book is an invaluable resource that pushes our understanding of East Asian regionalism forward.

In the decade since the Asian financial crisis the ten states of Southeast Asia that form ASEAN, together with China, Japan and South Korea have formed the basis of a community intended to support the well-being of its member states, markets and peoples. This highly successful regionalisation was not anticipated by the region’s leaders, however, and as a result, policy makers are increasingly talking about ‘meeting fatigue’ and the need to find a better way to govern regional affairs. Among the reforms being considered is a shift towards a more rules-based culture as well as the more explicit incorporation of both private sector and civil society organisations into the policy processes. In short, ASEAN+3 is seeking to develop new norms and processes for its networks and institutions.This book explores the pressures currently influencing East Asian regionalist policy debates, analysing the trend towards deeper integration and the emergence of a governance model for managing regional processes. Combining state and subnational perspectives in conjunction with an examination of the role of the business community and civil society organisations, this book highlights the policy challenges confronting regionalism and governance in East Asia, including key issues such as the rule of law, financial cooperation and a case study on disaster management.

It is increasingly recognized that the pandemic potential of many diseases holds the power to wreck economies, divide societies, and, indeed, to jeopardize the viability of nation states. In consequence, there is a growing—and urgent—need to understand and address such threats.As research in and around health security blossoms as never before, this new four-volume collection from Routledge’s acclaimed Critical Concepts in Military, Strategic, and Security Studies series meets the need for an authoritative reference work to make sense of a rapidly growing, and ever more complex, cross-disciplinary corpus of literature. Edited by a prominent scholar, the collection is a careful assembly of foundational and canonical work, together with innovative and cutting-edge applications and interventions.Including a full index and other navigational aids, together with a comprehensive introduction, newly written by the editor, which places the collected material in its historical and intellectual context, Health Security is an essential work of reference. The collection will be particularly useful as a one-stop database allowing scattered and often fugitive material to be easily located. It will also be welcomed as a crucial tool permitting rapid access to less familiar—and sometimes overlooked—texts. For researchers, students, practitioners, and policy-makers, it is a vital one-stop research and pedagogic resource.

Despite the enormous amount of work that has attempted to combine historical and anthropological approaches in recent years, few books have outlined the underlying premises that make integration of the two fields difficult. In Out of Time, Nicholas Thomas argues that a "historical perspective" cannot simply be added to conventional anthropology, which systematically takes ethnography "out of time." Drawing examples from the Polynesian anthropological literature, he points to discredited social evolutionary ideas that have persisted even after apparently dramatic theoretical shifts and to the need to take seriously sources that anthropologists have previously dismissed. When it was first published in 1989, Out of Time generated much-needed discussion on the appropriate models for historical anthropology. Thomas considered that both the historical structuralism of Marshall Sahlins and neo-Marxist regional systems theory had failed to transcend crucial limitations of conventional anthropology. Yet they provided elements of a more stimulating and critical perspective, which would also take account of contemporary political developments in the Pacific region.For this second edition, Thomas has added an afterword that reflects on the book's initial reception and brings its critique up to date. He suggests a need to historicize the professionalization of anthropology as a discipline to understand shifts in practice and the need to acknowledge the historical specificity and limits of all forms of cultural knowledge, whether "Western" or indigenous.Out of Time will be a useful text for graduate courses in anthropology, history, and cultural studies."This book displays rare integrity: Thomas' intellectual stance toward the theoretical approaches of others is fully consistent with his own discursive practices." --Contemporary PacificNicholas Thomas is Senior Research Fellow, Department of Archaeology and Anthropology, Australian National University.

The literature on shamanism and related topics is extensive, but has in general been biased toward curing and trance; the political and historical significance of shamanic activities has been largely neglected. The contributors to Shamanism, History, and the State--distinguished anthropologists and historians from England, Australia, and France--show that shamanism is not static and stable, but always changing as a result of political dynamics and historical processes.Contributors are Tamsyn Barton, Sysan Bayly, Mary Beard, Maurice Bloch, Peter Gow, Roberte N. Hamayon, Stephen Hugh-Jones, Caroline Humphrey, and Nicholas Thomas."The importance of this collection lies in the painstaking, many-sided ways in which it shows 'shamanism' to be a multifarious and continuously changing 'dialogue' or interaction with specific, local contexts. . . . Thus, rather than tackling the issue in principle, this collection tries to demonstrate through 'case studies' just how different 'shamanism' becomes if seen through a lens sensitive to history and the influence of institutions, such as the state, which seem far removed from it. I think the demonstrations add up to an impressive force." --Michael Taussig"This new, ably edited volume provides . . . chapters that are rich in historic detail and that provide insights into general cultural processes and social interactions." --HistorianNicholas Thomas is Queen Elizabeth II Research Fellow, Department of Prehistory and Anthropology, Australian National University, Canberra. He is the author of Out of Time: History and Evolution in Anthropological Discourse. Caroline Humphrey, author of Karl Marx Collective: Economy, Society and Religion in a Siberian Collective Farm, is Fellow of King's College and Lecturer in Social Anthropology, University of Cambridge.

Body art, practised across all world cultures and throughout history, is the most intimate art form, linking the self, the senses, and the social and political. In recent years, it has proliferated in an unprecedented way, borrowing motifs and practices from many different traditions. What is it that these new and borrowed body arts do, and what do they tell us about the global culture that we now inhabit? Nicholas Thomas explores these questions and many more in this wide- ranging survey of body arts from prehistoric origins to the present. He illuminates their role in expressing cultural identity; their associations with ritual, theatricality, criminality and beauty; and their recent resurgence via the Modern Primitive movement and in the work of contemporary artists. More than 180 illustrations chronicle the diversity of body arts, from painting and scarification to footbinding, Russian prison tattoos, Harlem drag balls and the inked designs worn by celebrities such as Tupac Shakur and David Beckham. For everyone with any interest in the subject, Body Art offers an intelligent celebration of this quintessentially human art form.

The dazzling colours and patterns of the art of the Pacific Islands have long entranced Western audiences, not least artists such as Gauguin and Picasso. The tendency has been to regard Oceanic art as ‘primitive’, mysterious and shrouded in taboo, but Nicholas Thomas, in looking at and beyond the familiar, stunning surfaces of masks and shields, carved canoe prows and feathered gods, discovers the significance of such objects, past and present, for the peoples of the Pacific. In this revised edition with a completely new chapter on globalization and contemporary art, he shows how each region is characterized by certain art forms and practices – among them Maori ancestral carvings, rituals of exchange and warfare in the Solomon Islands, the production of barkcloth by women in Polynesia – while also being shaped by influences from within the Pacific and beyond. The dynamism and diversity of this compelling art are highlighted by the works accompanying this revelatory text – from those that evoke deep-rooted customs to ones that address contemporary political issues, now illustrated in colour throughout.

A timely re-examination of European engagements with indigenous art and the presence of indigenous art in the contemporary art world. The arts of Africa, Oceania and native America famously inspired twentieth-century modernist artists such as Picasso, Matisse and Ernst. The politics of such stimulus, however, have long been highly contentious: was this a cross-cultural discovery to be celebrated, or just one more example of Western colonial appropriation? This revelatory book explores cross-cultural art through the lens of settler societies such as Australia and New Zealand, where Europeans made new nations, displacing and outnumbering but never eclipsing native peoples. In this dynamic of dispossession and resistance, visual art has loomed large. Settler artists and designers drew upon Indigenous motifs and styles in their search for distinctive identities. Yet powerful Indigenous art traditions have asserted the presence of First Nations peoples and their claims to place, history and sovereignty. Cultural exchange has been a two-way process, and an unpredictable one: contemporary Indigenous art draws on global contemporary practice, but moves beyond a bland affirmation of hybrid identities to insist on the enduring values and attachment to place of Indigenous peoples.

Taking as its departure point Bernard Smith's classic study, European Vision and the South Pacific (1960), Double Vision explores the ambivalences of European perceptions of the Pacific and juxtaposes them with the indigenous visual cultures that challenge western assumptions about art and representation. Double Vision addresses these larger interpretive questions through case studies of the cultures of voyages, colonial art, and indigenous affirmations of identity. It suggests that images and texts can be combined through a new practice of innovative, visually oriented cultural history. This approach yields a fresh understanding of history, colonialism and culture in Australia, New Zealand and the Pacific. Double Vision is a challenging combination of visual and textual inquiry, and its outstanding list of contributors offer a fresh perspective on art and history in the Pacific.

Entangled Objects threatens to dislodge the cornerstone of Western anthropology by rendering permanently problematic the idea of reciprocity. All traffic, and commerce, whether economic or intellectual, between Western anthropologists and the rest of the world, is predicated upon the possibility of establishing reciprocal relations between the West and the indigenous peoples it has colonized for centuries.Drawing on his work on contemporary postcolonial Pacific societies, Nicholas Thomas takes up three issues central to modern anthropology: the cultural and political dynamics of colonial encounters, the nature of Western and non-Western transactions (such as the gift and the commodity), and the significance of material objects in social life. Along the way, he raises doubts about any simple “us/them” dichotomy between Westerners and Pacific Islanders, challenging the preoccupation of anthropology with cultural difference by stressing the shared history of colonial entanglement.Thomas integrates general issues into a historical discussion of the uses Pacific Islanders and Europeans have made of each other’s material artifacts. He explores how nineteenth- and twentieth-century islanders, and visitors from the time of the Cook voyages up to the present day, have fashioned identities for themselves and each other by appropriating and exchanging goods. Previous writers have explored museums and the tribal art market, but this is the first book to concentrate on the distinct interests of European collectors and the islanders. In its comparative scope, its combination of historical and ethnographic scholarship, and its subversive approach to anthropological theory and traditional understandings of colonial relationships, Entangled Objects is a unique and challenging book. It will be tremendously interesting to all those working in the fields of cultural studies, from history to literature.

The voyages of Captain Cook are endlessly fascinating to a wide audience, and no aspect of them has been more controversial than Cook's death. This book reprints one of the classic accounts of this episode, the vivid and lively narrative by one of the voyage surgeons, David Samwell. This book not only makes Samwell's "Narrative of the Death of Captain James Cook" readily available for the first time, but presents it with Samwell's previously unpublished letters relating to Cook's third voyage, and his poetry. The introductory essays discuss Samwell's contribution to our understanding of this dramatic period in Pacific and maritime history, and examine the personality and career of Samwell himself.

This book explores the perceptions of colonized populations that have developed over the course of European expansion and critically assesses different approaches to colonial representation.

Drawing on contributors from academic and policy communities, this volume explores the major aspects of Australia-China relations. The frequently overlooked connection between Australia and Taiwan is also considered to allow readers to reach a full appreciation of the restraints engendered by the relationship with China as well as its many benefits. Moving beyond the traditional state-centric analysis, the work incorporates new material on sub-state relations as well as examining the impact of global economic and social forces on the Australia-China friendship. In addition to providing a contemporary understanding of the bilateral ties, this work also provides a benchmark against which Australia's other relations with the countries of East Asia can be measured.

In this collection of essays, Nicholas Thomas, a leading theorist of historical anthropology, explores the historicization of cultural encounters in the region referred to as Oceania. Basing his claims on wide-ranging historical and ethnographic research and building on his celebrated studies of exchange and colonialism in the Pacific, Thomas describes how outsiders and islanders alike have constructed indigenous cultures over the last two hundred years. In Oceania documents and analyzes the "rhetorical artifacts" of explorers, missionaries, fiction and travel writers, and the people of the Pacific themselves to illustrate how Oceanic identities have been represented over time. Not content with conventional methods of anthropology or history, Thomas draws on postcolonial theory and literary analysis in extraordinarily wide-ranging analyses of texts, visual images, and historical processes. He demonstrates how cultures of the Pacific Islands have dealt with colonialist ventures, modernity, and the debate about the recuperation of histories and traditions. The picture Thomas paints of Oceania, however, is not one of a group of societies stripped of meaning, but one that shows how the interactions between indigenous cultures and European influences have created entirely new identities.

The mutiny on the Bounty was one of the most controversial events of eighteenth-century maritime history. This book publishes a full and absorbing narrative of the events by one of the participants, the boatswain's mate James Morrison, who tells the story of the mounting tensions over the course of the voyage out to Tahiti, the fascinating encounter with Polynesian culture there, and the shocking drama of the event itself.In the aftermath, Morrison was among those who tried to make a new life on Tahiti. In doing so, he gained a deeper understanding of Polynesian culture than any European who went on to write about the people of the island and their way of life before it was changed forever by Christianity and colonial contact. Morrison was not a professional scientist but a keen observer with a lively sympathy for Islanders. This is the most insightful and wide-ranging of early European accounts of Tahitian life.Mutiny and Aftermath is the first scholarly edition of this classic of Pacific history and anthropology. It is based directly on a close study of Morrison’s original manuscript, one of the treasures of the Mitchell Library in Sydney, Australia. The editors assess and explain Morrison’s observations of Islander culture and social relations, both on Tubuai in the Austral Islands and on Tahiti itself. The book fully identifies the Tahitian people and places that Morrison refers to and makes this remarkable text accessible for the first time to all those interested in an extraordinary chapter of early Pacific history.

An Ocean of Wonder: The Fantastic in the Pacific brings together fifty writers and artists from across Moananuiākea working in myriad genres across media, ranging from oral narratives and traditional wonder tales to creative writing as well as visual artwork and scholarly essays. Collectively, this anthology features the fantastic as present-day Indigenous Pacific world-building that looks to the past in creating alternative futures, and in so doing reimagines relationships between peoples, environments, deities, nonhuman relatives, history, dreams, and storytelling. Wonder is activated by curiosity, humility in the face of mystery, and engagement with possibilities. We see wonder and the fantastic as general modes of expression that arenot confined to realism. As such, the fantastic encompasses fantasy, science fiction, magic realism, fabulation, horror, fairy tale, utopia, dystopia, and speculative fiction. We include Black, feminist, and queer futurisms, Indigenous wonderworks, Hawaiian moʻolelo kamahaʻo and moʻolelo āiwaiwa, Sāmoan fāgogo, and other non-mimetic genres from specific cultures, because we recognize that their refusal to adopt restrictive Euro-American definitions of reality is whatinspires and enables the fantastic to flourish.As artistic, intellectual, and culturally based expressions that encode and embody Indigenous knowledge, the multimodal moʻolelo in this collection upend monolithic, often exoticizing, and demeaning stereotypes of the Pacific and situate themselves in conversation with critical understandings of the global fantastic, Indigenous futurities, social justice, and decolonial and activist storytelling.In this collection, Oceanic ideas and images surround and connect to Hawaiʻi, which is for the three coeditors, a piko (center); at the same time, navigating both juxtaposition and association, the collection seeks to articulate pilina (relationships) across genres, locations, time, and media and to celebrate the multiplicity and relationality of the fantastic in Oceania.

Published in 1999, this book is designed to provide the reader with a detailed understanding of Hong Kong’s social and political development. It offers a contemporary, holistic understanding of Hong Kong, which will not only complement existing works but also provide the reader with a solid foundation for understanding future developments in the territory. The book is divided into three sections: Identity, Civil Society and Politics. The first two sections provide a discrete understanding of the issues involved. This analysis is then utilised to explain the particular path of political development Hong Kong experienced in the 1980s and 1990s. Due to the in-depth analysis provided this work will be of use either to academics or to members of the general public seeking to understand the development of Hong Kong.

Published in 1999, this book is designed to provide the reader with a detailed understanding of Hong Kong’s social and political development. It offers a contemporary, holistic understanding of Hong Kong, which will not only complement existing works but also provide the reader with a solid foundation for understanding future developments in the territory. The book is divided into three sections: Identity, Civil Society and Politics. The first two sections provide a discrete understanding of the issues involved. This analysis is then utilised to explain the particular path of political development Hong Kong experienced in the 1980s and 1990s. Due to the in-depth analysis provided this work will be of use either to academics or to members of the general public seeking to understand the development of Hong Kong.

Available open access under CC-BY-NC-ND licence.The COVID-19 pandemic disrupted economies and upended lives – but did it also open the door to more inclusive policies? Focusing on both attitudinal and institutional repercussions of the pandemic, and transcending Western-centric narratives and case studies, this book asks the question: has the COVID-19 pandemic facilitated the adoption of more generous and inclusive social policies in Southeast Asia?Combining original survey data with qualitative policy analysis in Indonesia, Malaysia, the Philippines, Singapore and Thailand, this concise yet rigorous volume challenges long-held beliefs and provides a comparative framework for understanding welfare change in politically and economically varied contexts. Valuable reading for anyone seeking to understand how crises can reshape public expectations and state responses.