Australia and the Pacific: A History by Ian Hoskins

Book Description

Secondhand. Good condition. Ex library copy with no external stickers. Sticker on inside front cover. Wear to book corners and edges. Body text and binding are still very good.

Australia's deep past and its modern history are intrinsically linked to the Pacic.

In Australia & the Pacific, Ian Hoskins, award-winning author of Sydney Harbour and Coast, expands his gaze to examine Australia's relationship with the Pacic region, from our ties with Papua New Guinea and New Zealand to our complex connections with China, Japan and the United States.

This revealing, sweeping narrative history begins with the shifting of the continents, the coming of the first Australians, and, thousands of years later, the Europeans who dispossessed them.

Hoskins explores colonists' attempts to exploit the region's riches while keeping 'white Australia' separate from neighbouring Asians, Melanesians and Polynesians.

He examines how the advent of modern human rights and the creation of the United Nations after World War Two changed Australia and investigates our increasing regional engagement following the rise of China and the growing unpredictability of US foreign policy.

Concluding with the offshore detention of asylum seekers and current debates over climate change, Hoskins questions Australia's responsibilities towards our increasingly imperilled neighbours. (back cover)