engleski

Science, Voyages, and Encounters in Oceania, 1511- 1850. By BRONWEN DOUGLAS. London: Palgrave Macmillan UK, series: Palgrave Studies in Pacific History, 2014.

By covering the four centuries of history and vast space of Oceania (island of Southeast Asia, New Guinea, Australia, New Zeeland and the Pacific Islands) the book focuses on histories of cultural encounters between Europeans and indigenous people. Author’s intention is to show how different discourse to human race influenced foreign travelers and explores. Confronting Eurocentric approach to understanding Others with non-European one, author successfully discredited a stereotypes about imperial center and periphery as well as those on European superiority over the non-European cultures. According the words of the author, the book represent a set of interconnected episodes that brought ethnohistory into play with the history of science through focus of interactions of travelers and local inhabitants. In that sense, this study is important contribution to better understanding of history of Pacific world but also of intellectual history of European expansion.

history of exploration, early encounters, Oceania

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