Pacific Islanders under German rule : a study in the meaning of colonial resistance

Abstract

This is an important book. It captures under one cover the German approach to her Pacific colonies and the Islanders' responses to the Germans. It is the first detailed study of Samoans, Ponapeans and New Guineans under German rule. It is thoroughly researched, well documented, and written in a readable, yet thoroughly scholarly style. It draws on techniques of anthropology and ethno-history, in addition to formal historiographical analysis, to reveal new insights into the nature of Islander resistance to and protest against German imperial rule. It casts aside the old assumptions that colonised peoples always resisted - to the death, if necessary - the coming of white colonisers, and instead argues, convincingly, that the Islanders' responses to the Germans were more subtle, more profound and more dependent upon traditional social structures and leadership than hitherto has been acknowledged. It does not shy away from major blunders by the German colonial administration in the Pacific, yet, at the same time, it acknowledges the remarkable vision and insight into Island cultures shown by some German administrators.