The Pacific Basin: An Introduction is a new textbook which provides an interdisciplinary and comparative overview of the emerging Pacific world. Interest in the Pacific Basin has increased markedly in recent years, driven largely by the rise of China as a global rival to the United States and Asian development more generally. Growth in eastern Asia, as well as in the western Americas, has led the Pacific Basin to evolve as a dynamic economic zone. To make sense of this transformation, the book: Defines the Pacific Basin, locates it in academic research, and explains its importance. Addressees the historical origins and evolution of the Pacific Basin and its sub-regions. Introduces students to the historical and contemporary relationships, continuities and differences that characterize the region. Incorporates analyses of colonialism and imperialism, migration and settlement, economic development and trade, international relations, war and memory, environmental policy, urbanization, mental and public health, gender, film, and literature. Connects the diverse peoples of this vast area, explores their common challenges and the diverse responses to these challenges, and provides a window into the lived humanity of the Pacific Basin. The Pacific Basin: An Introduction is a key textbook for undergraduate courses on the Pacific Basin, the Pacific Rim, International Studies, Geography, World History, and Globalization.

Talk of the human-enhanced greenhouse effect and the ways in which it may affect our lives has made many people more aware of environmental change. We have come to realize that the environment is and has always bean in a state of continuous change, and that we and other organisms have had to adjust our lifestyles accordingly. This book focuses on the Pacific Basin, a vast region which can be considered a microcosm of the entire surface of the Earth and which has suffered from being marginalized in most accounts of Earth-surface processes and phenomena. In this book, the Pacific Basin includes the Pacific Ocean and Islands and also the Pacific Rim which is divided into the subregions of Antarctica, South America, Central America, North America, Beringia, East Asia and Australasia. Professor Nunn begins by outlining the distant origins of the modern Pacific Basin more than 1000 million years ago, then traces its development through the Palaeozoic and Mesozoic into the Cenozoic Era. For this time the last 66 million years - the history of environmental change becomes progressively better known. For the last 1.8 million years (the Quaternary period), the Earth s climate has oscillated between warm and cool, producing synchronous environmental changes throughout most of the Pacific Basin. The importance of volcanism and tectonics (land-level movements) for which the Pacific Basin is well known as causes of environmental change is explained in detail. The effects of human activities on most Pacific Basin environments began to be registered only during the Holocene the last 12 000 years culminating in the environmental crisis which currently afflicts many parts of this region. While the role of humans in altering Pacific Basin environments is discussed in detail, considerable attention is also given to the ways in which environmental change caused changes to human lifestyles which had far-reaching consequences.

Freshly presents world history through its oceans and seas in uniquely wide-ranging, original chapters by leading experts in their fields.

Essential single-volume history of the Pacific region and the global interactions which define it.

Basalt is the most voluminous of all the igneous rocks. Extensive field, experimental, petrographic and geochemical studies of basalt have provided us with a considerable understanding of igneous petrogenesis, plate tectonics, and crust-mantle interaction and exchange. One important aspect of geology that has developed over the last few decades is the study of oceanic basalts. The ocean basins cover about two thirds of the earth's surface and are floored by a basement of oceanic basalt that is continuously undergoing generation at spreading centres and destruction at subduction zones, a process which throughout geological time is recognized as the principal means of generating new crust. The study of oceanic basalts enables us to understand better the generation and recycling of crustal materials (including the continental crust), and the exchange between oceanic crust and seawater via hydrothermal activity. Compositional variations displayed by oceanic basalts provide windows into the mantle, and the identification of isotopically-distinct mantle reservoirs demonstrates that the source of oceanic basalts is heterogeneous and is controlled by convection and reservoir interactions within the mantle.

Almost one-quarter of the world's languages are (or were) spoken in the Pacific, making it linguistically the most complex region in the world. Although numerous technical books on groups of Pacific or Australian languages have been published, and descriptions of individual languages are available, until now there has been no single book that attempts a wide regional coverage for a general audience. Pacific Languages introduces readers to the grammatical features of Oceanic, Papuan, and Australian languages as well as to the semantic structures of these languages. For readers without a formal linguistic background, a brief introduction to descriptive linguistics is provided. In addition to describing the structure of Pacific languages, this volume places them in their historical and geographical context, discusses the linguistic evidence for the settlement of the Pacific, and speculates on the reason for the region's many languages. It devotes considerable attention to the effects of contact between speakers of different languages and to the development of pidgin and creole languages in the Pacific. Throughout, technical language is kept to a minimum without oversimplifying the concepts or the issues involved. A glossary of technical terms, maps, and diagrams help identify a language geographically or genetically; reading lists and a language index guide the researcher interested in a particular language or group to other sources of information. Here at last is a clear and straightforward overview of Pacific languages for linguists and anyone interested in the history of sociology of the Pacific.