Shanghaied in San Francisco in 1868, teenage Scots sailor Jack Renton then found himself on a voyage into the heart of darkness. Escaping from his floating prison in an open whaleboat, Renton drifted for 2000 miles, only to be washed up on the shores of a Pacific island shunned by 19th-century mariners, Malaita in the Solomon Islands. There he was stripped of his clothes by headhunters and forced to 'go native' to survive. Initially a slave to their chief, Kabou, he eventually became the man's most trusted warrior and adviser. Renton's own account of his eight-year exile, published after he was rescued, remains the only authenticated account of a mental and physical ordeal that still haunts the imagination to this day. It caused a sensation at the time, though it is now clear that it airbrushed out most of the key events. Researching the Renton legend, Nigel Randell spent several years talking to the Malaitans and piecing together a very different account from Renton's sanitised version. The ultimate irony is that a man so keen to conceal his 'crimes' should have bequeathed their evidence - a necklace of 60 human teeth - to a collector who donated it to a national museum.

Worldwide supplies of sugar and cotton were impacted dramatically as the U.S. Civil War dragged on. New areas of production entered these lucrative markets, particularly in the South Pacific, and plantation agriculture grew substantially in disparate areas such as Australia, Fiji, and Hawaii. The increase in production required an increase in labor; in the rush to fill the vacuum, freebooters and other unsavory characters began a slave trade in Melanesians and Polynesians that continued into the twentieth century. The White Pacific ranges over the broad expanse of Oceania to reconstruct the history of "blackbirding" (slave trading) in the region. It examines the role of U.S. citizens (many of them ex-slaveholders and ex-confederates) in the trade and its roots in Civil War dislocations. What unfolds is a dramatic tale of unfree labor, conflicts between formal and informal empire, white supremacy, threats to sovereignty in Hawaii, the origins of a White Australian policy, and the rise of Japan as a Pacific power and putative protector. It also pieces together a wonderfully suggestive history of the African American presence in the Pacific. Based on deft archival research in Australia, New Zealand, Fiji, Hawaii, the United States, and Great Britain, The White Pacific uncovers a heretofore hidden story of race, labor, war, and intrigue that contributes significantly to the emerging intersectional histories of race and ethnicity.

Sciences of Modernism charts the numerous collaborations and competitions occurring between early modernist literature and early twentieth-century science.

Tamar Myers returns to Africa in The Headhunter’s Daughter, the second book in her wonderful mystery series set in the Belgian Congo in the mid-twentieth century—a riveting and atmospheric follow-up to The Witchdoctor’s Wife. Raised in the Congo herself, the child of missionaries, Myers uses her intimate knowledge of the people, the culture, and the landscape to add richness to this stunning story of an abandoned infant raised by a tribe of headhunters—a masterful mystery that fans of Alexander McCall Smith and The #1 Ladies’ Detective Agency will adore.

An exploration of headhunting and the collection of heads for European museums in the context of colonial wars, from the 1870s to the 1930s. The book offers a new understanding of the mutually dependent interaction between indigenous peoples and colonial powers, and how collected remains became regarded as objects of wider significance.

This book brings together material on headhunting from several Southeast Asia societies, examines its cultural contexts, and relates them to colonial history, violence, and ritual.

INTERNATIONAL BESTSELLER • From the #1 New York Times bestselling author of Cockroaches comes a funny, dark, and twisted caper worthy of Quentin Tarantino and the Coen brothers—about an aspiring art thief and the target who’s about to destroy his life. “If you don’t know Nesbø, it’s time to get with it.” —USA Today Roger Brown is a corporate headhunter, and he’s a master of his profession. But one career simply can’t support his luxurious lifestyle and his wife’s fledgling art gallery. At an art opening one night he meets Clas Greve, who is not only the perfect candidate for a major CEO job, but also, perhaps, the answer to his financial woes: Greve just so happens to mention that he owns a priceless Peter Paul Rubens painting that’s been lost since World War II—and Roger Brown just so happens to dabble in art theft. But when he breaks into Greve’s apartment, he finds more than just the painting. And Clas Greve may turn out to be the worst thing that’s ever happened to Roger Brown. Don't miss Jo Nesbo's new thriller, Killing Moon, coming soon!

One of the world’s top headhunters reveals his most valuable techniques for getting the best jobs and finding the right people. The most important thing you’ll ever do if you are trying to build, rebuild, or even turn around an organization is hire the best people—and keep them. Jeffrey E. Christian has learned this lesson by working on hundreds of executive search assignments and building his own headhunting firm into a nationally recognized company, one of the top ten in the nation. In The Headhunter’s Edge, he reveals his secrets for excelling on either side of the desk—as a leader trying to build a great company, or as a job seeker in search of the next big position. In this practical manifesto, Christian shows how essential it is to have the most talented people on your side. But how do you find the best? And how do you become the best? Christian’s solution: Think like a headhunter. He gives readers the benefits of his twenty years of experience interviewing thousands of CEOs and potential CEOs, and tells you • how to conduct an interview and spot great leadership qualities in job candidates • exactly what to do and say to keep a valuable employee from resigning • how to expand your network to find the best emerging talent • key strategies and instructions for choosing and getting the most out of a search firm • what it takes for ambitious and talented people to get noticed and get the next big job or promotion Practical, impassioned, and wise, The Headhunter’s Edge is an indispensable guide to advancing your career—and making your business more successful and profitable.

Many anthropological accounts of warfare in indigenous societies have described the taking of heads or other body parts as trophies. But almost nothing is known of the prevalence of trophy-taking of this sort in the armed forces of contemporary nation-states. This book is a history of this type of misconduct among military personnel over the past two centuries, exploring its close connections with colonialism, scientific collecting and concepts of race, and how it is a model for violent power relationships between groups.