The South Seas
A Reception History from Daniel Defoe to Dorothy Lamour
By (author) Sean Brawley, Chris Dixon
Publication date:
21 April 2015Length of book:
320 pagesPublisher
Lexington BooksDimensions:
234x165mm6x9"
ISBN-13: 9780739193358
The South Seas charts the idea of the South Seas in popular cultural productions of the English-speaking world, from the beginnings of the Western enterprise in the Pacific until the eve of the Pacific War. Building on the notion that the influences on the creation of a text, and the ways in which its audience receives the text, are essential for understanding the historical significance of particular productions, Sean Brawley and Chris Dixon explore the ways in which authors’ and producers’ ideas about the South Seas were “haunted” by others who had written on the subject, and how they in turn influenced future generations of knowledge producers. The South Seas is unique in its examination of an array of cultural texts. Along with the foundational literary texts that established and perpetuated the South Seas tradition in written form, the authorsexplore diverse cultural forms such as art, music, theater, film, fairs, platform speakers, surfing culture, and tourism.
The literature on representation of Pacific Island societies, their cultures, and the history of Western contacts with them is extensive. This scholarship has been produced largely by historians, anthropologists, and scholars of literature and media studies in Western countries and, more recently, by islanders themselves. Brawley (modern history, politics, and international relations, Macquarie Univ., Australia) and Dixon (historical and philosophical inquiry, Univ. of Queensland, Australia) now add to that literature. The volume is very good indeed, offering excellent scholarship and taking up a well-chosen range of work. In addition to Defoe and Lamour, the authors consider Robert Louis Stevenson, Margaret Mead, Herman Melville, the Bounty, and a few less-well-covered topics. This reader always welcomes refreshing volumes—especially those of the quality of this one—that retell, and add to, stories of how English-speaking societies have encountered the Pacific Islands and how these stories have been received and shaped over time. Summing Up: Recommended. Lower-division undergraduates through faculty; general readers.