This volume, the result of ongoing collaborations between Australian and French anthropologists, historians and linguists, explores encounters between Pacific peoples and foreigners during the longue durée of European exploration, colonisation and settlement from the sixteenth century to the twentieth century. It deploys the concept of ‘encounter’ rather than the more common idea of ‘fir…
Materials from the past that wrongly anticipate the future, or present information or judgments that are later proved misleading or erroneous, are sometimes overlooked in reconstructing the past.