Pacific World

Catalog description

Following ongoing attempts by historians to move beyond the confines of national and imperial histories, this research seminar highlights the interaction of peoples and cultures across what may be described as the most dynamic world region of the twenty-first century. While discussions of Mediterranean, Atlantic and Indian Ocean Worlds are now commonplace, scholars have, to date, paid less attention to the idea of a Pacific World. How useful is it to identify a “Pacific World” before and after the Age of Discovery—that is, to locate distinctive patterns of human, material and cultural exchange across the Pacific before and after the flood of European power from the fifteenth century? What has been the effect of the rise of the nation-state, modern empires, modern war and globalization? How critical are national and/or imperial legacies to enduring patterns of human interaction and exchange in the twenty-first century Pacific? As global economics, politics and culture increasingly tilt toward the Pacific, we will attempt to uncover the source of the region’s extraordinary energy.