American Pacificism: Oceania in the U.S. Imagination

This study provides a provocative analysis and critique of American representations of Oceania and Oceanians, from the nineteenth century to the present. Arguing that imperial fantasies have glossed over a complex, violent history, Paul Lyons develops the concept of "American Pacificism." This theoretical framework draws on contemporary theories of friendship, hospitality and tourism to refigure established debates around "orientalism" for an Oceanian context. Lyons explores American-Islander relations and traces the ways in which two fundamental conceptions of Oceania have been entwined in the American imagination. On the one hand, the Pacific islands are envisioned as economic and geopolitical "stepping stones," rather than ends in themselves, and on the other they are imagined as ends of the earth or "cultural limits," unencumbered by notions of sin, antitheses to the industrial worlds of economic and political modernity. Both conceptions obscure not only Islander cultures, but also innovativeresponses to incursion. The islands instead emerge in relation to American national identity, as places for scientific discovery, soul-saving and civilizing missions, manhood-testing adventure, nuclear testing and eroticized furloughs between maritime work or warfare. Ranging from first contact and the colonial archive through to postcolonialism and global tourism, this powerful volume draws upon a wide, rewarding range of literary works, historical and cultural scholarship, government documents, and tourist literature.

Paul Lyons is Associate Professor at the University of Hawai'i at Manoa.