British and German ambitions have clashed in the Pacific at many times
in the last two centuries. This is a study of those episodes, and their
effects on the European powers and the Pacific Islanders involved. It
throws light on the activities of missionaries in Micronesia,
head-hunters in New Guinea, Law-makers in Tonga and the influence of the
British and Germans in the region. The book considers: European
perceptions of Pacific islanders and vice versa; the ecological effect
of European intervention, both on the environment and its inhabitants;
the efforts to impose a European rule of law in the South Pacific; the
area of sexuality as a specific form of Pacific-European interaction
where cultural differences between European and traditional behaviour
was at its most marked.