Pacific Islands

Evelyn Cheesman travelled to Vanuatu and brought back a poison-tipped spear and a new understanding of the natural world.

Easter Island’s stone ancestors carry messages for the gods.

As the age of revolutions swept across Europe, the Pacific also witnessed dramatic changes when monarchies were rebuilt and societies transformed. 

Botany became an unlikely battlefield in the Age of Revolutions.

J.W. Davidson describes how whalers, traders, and settlers represented the first waves of Western colonisation of the Pacific islands.

Arnold Whitridge describes how, in April 1768, Bougainville reached ‘an enchanting island’ in the South Pacific.

Ann Hills on fishing tales from Hawaii

When the British and Maori signed the Treaty of Waitangi in 1840, Governor Hobson declared: 'We are one people'. Today, as Professor Keith Sinclair shows, this hope has still to be realised.