Nicholas Thomas Livres

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.

The extraordinary sixty-thousand-year history of how the Pacific islands were settled.

A timely re-examination of European engagements with indigenous art and the presence of indigenous art in the contemporary art world. Tribal art has been one of the great inspirations of 20th-century Western art. Europeans such as Picasso, Matisse, Ernst and Brancusi created their own responses to masks, sculpture and other forms of African, Oceanic and American art. But is this a cross-cultural discovery to be celebrated, or just one more example of Western colonial appropriation? Possessions seeks to prove that both viewpoints are too simplistic. It focuses on the distinctive situation of the settler society - countries such as Australia and New Zealand in which large numbers of Europeans made their home, displacing but never entirely eclipsing native peoples. Settler artists and designers have drawn on indigenous motifs and styles to create art. Yet powerful indigenous art traditions have also been used to assert the presence of native peoples and their prior claim to sovereignty. Cultural exchange proves to be a two-way process, and an unpredictable one: much contemporary indigenous art draws on modern Western art, while affirming ancestral values and rejecting the European appropriation of tribal culture

The British Museums uniquely important Melanesian collection is pre-eminent among early collections, and the 20,000 items it comprises are core to understanding the cultures of the western Pacific. The extraordinary art styles represented, from groups such as New Guinea, New Ireland and the Solomon Islands and relating to ancestors, family and clan, houses, feasting and festivals, are of interest not only in themselves but also for how they have influenced European artists since the nineteenth century. With contributions from a wide range of international scholars, anthropologists, indigenous peoples and artists, and illustrated with over 300 colour images of Museum objects and contextual photographs, the book will survey and respond to the collection from the point of view of anthropologists and the people responsible for its creation. Melanesia is a visual feast and key reference work, providing illuminating encounters with the historical and contemporary cultures of the western Pacific, documenting the most culturally diverse and artistically fertile region in the world for the first time.

A new edition of this concise but authoritative survey of the diverse, dazzling and compelling art of Oceania in all its forms, past and present.

The author takes up issues central to modern anthropology. In so doing he raises doubts about any simple "us / them" dichotomy between Westerners and Pacific Islanders, challenging the preoccupation of anthropology with cultural differences by stressing the shared history of colonial entanglement.

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. This title reveals that there was gain as well as loss, survival as well as suffering, and invention as well as exploitation.

Over the last twenty years museums have proliferated, attracting new audiences and assuming new prominence in public life. The Return of Curiosity offers a fresh perspective on museums and what they may now be good for.

An illuminating and authoritative survey of body art by a world expert on the subject This informed and accessible book explores the wide-ranging history of body art, from its expression of tribal affinities and cultural identity to its role in theatricality, criminality, and beautifying the body, as well as its influence on contemporary artists. Seven thematic chapters explore the extraordinary diversity of body arts practiced worldwide, both past and present. These range from the role of body art in traditional societies around the world, from Nigeria to Amazonia, Samoa, and New Guinea and from the past through the twentieth century. The theatricality of body is considered in a range of stages including the masquerades in West Africa, the Japanese Noh theater, the drag balls of Harlem, and the Sydney Mardi Gras parade. Later chapters explore themes of beauty and the association of tattoos with the socially marginal, before moving to the revival in the twentieth- and twenty-first centuries of body art as a means of expressing individual and cultural identity as demonstrated in the “modern primitive” movement, performance art, and celebrity tattoo culture. A wealth of illustrations reflects the many manifestations of body art, including tattooing, piercing, scarification, masquerade, hairstyles, performance art, and more.186 illustrations, 143 in color

"When Tatau was first published in 2010, Mark Adams' renowned images documenting a great Polynesian art tradition were a revelation. It told the story of the late Suluʻape Paulo II, the pre-eminent figure of modern Samoan tattooing. A brilliantly innovative and often controversial man, he saw tatau as an art of international importance. Tatau documented his practice, and that of other tufuga ta tatau (tattoo artists), in the contexts of Polynesian tattooing, Samoan migrant communities and New Zealand art. Long out-of-print, this revised and extended new edition, with its handsome large format and texts by distinguished scholars, makes a cultural treasure available once more"--

The book explores the complexities of ethnographic museums, which are increasingly redefined as collections of world cultures. It highlights the ongoing challenges faced by curators who strive for dialogue and collaboration with the source communities of their artifacts. Many items in these collections were acquired during the colonial era, leading to debates about their provenance and the ethics of ownership. The narrative underscores the tension between the museums' intentions and the historical context of their collections, raising critical questions about cultural representation and restitution.

Focusing on essential management skills, this guide equips managers, supervisors, and team leaders with effective strategies to enhance their leadership abilities. It offers practical tools and techniques designed to foster modern leadership qualities, ensuring readers can not only kickstart their journey but also maintain their competitive edge in their roles.

Focusing on historical preservation, this reprint of a 1872 original aims to make classic literature accessible to modern readers. Published by Anatiposi, the book may exhibit imperfections due to its age, including missing pages or lower quality. The initiative seeks to ensure that valuable historical texts are not forgotten, allowing contemporary audiences to engage with the past.

aeo This is a topical subject area which draws not just on anthropological material, but also on literary and historical sources. aeo The book provides a good introduction to the whole field of studies on colonial discourse and histories -- discussing, among others, the work of Said and Bhabha. aeo The book is illustrated with pictures and texts.

The Pacific artefacts and works of art collected during the three voyages of Captain James Cook and the navigators, traders and missionaries who followed him are of foundational importance for the study of art and culture in Oceania. These collections are representative not only of technologies or belief systems but of indigenous cultures at the formative stages of their modern histories, and exemplify Islanders' institutions, cosmologies and social relationships. Recently, scholars from the Pacific and further afield, working with Pacific artefacts at the Museum of Archaeology and Anthropology in Cambridge (MAA), have set out to challenge and rethink some longstanding assumptions on their significance. The Cook voyage collection at the MAA is among the four or five most important in the world, containing over 200 of the 2000-odd objects with Cook voyage provenance that are dispersed throughout the world. The collection includes some 100 artefacts dating from Cook's first voyage. This stunning book catalogues this collection, and its cutting-edge scholarship sheds new light on the significance of many artefacts of encounter.

Paul Gauguin is commonly regarded as one of the greatest modern artists. He is renowned for resplendent, mythic imagery from Oceania, for a life of restless travel and for his supposed immersion in Polynesian life. But he has long been regarded ambivalently, and in recent years both Gauguin's sexual behaviour, and his paintings, have been considered exploitative. Gauguin and Polynesia offers a fresh view on the artist, not from the perspective of European art history, but from the contemporary vantage point of the region – Oceania – which he so famously moved to. Gauguin's art is revealed, for the first time, to be richer and more eclectic than has been recognised. The artist indeed did invent enigmatic and symbolic images, but he also depicted Polynesia's colonial modernity, acknowledging the life of the time and the dignity and power of some of the Islanders he encountered. Gauguin and Polynesia neither celebrates nor condemns an extraordinary painter, who at times denounced and at other times affirmed the French empire that shaped his own life and the places he moved between. It is a revelation, of a formative artist of modern life, and of multicultural worlds in the making.