Race Question in Oceania

In 1873 the German naturalist A.B. Meyer spent five months in New Guinea. He had expected «bloodthirsty and untamed savages» and was amazed to find «men of milder customs». His compatriot Otto Finsch returned from a voyage through Hawaii, Micronesia, New Zealand and Torres Strait declaring Germany's most respected anthropologists wrong. Human races could not be neatly distinguished: they «merge into one another to such an extent that the difference between Europeans and Papuans becomes completely unimportant». This richly interdisciplinary book explores the transformative impacts of personal encounters in Oceania on understandings of human difference, and illuminates the difficult relationship between field experience and metropolitan science in late nineteenth-century Europe.

Autorentext

Hilary Susan Howes completed her PhD in the School of Culture, History and Language at the Australian National University. She has published and taught on environmental history, history of science and Pacific history at the Australian National University and the University of Melbourne.

Inhalt

Contents: «This new and interesting world»: A.B. Meyer in New Guinea, 1873 - «It is not so!» Otto Finsch and physical diversity in Oceania, 1865-85 - «On one hundred and thirty-five Papuan skulls»: A.B. Meyer and contested craniology - «In no way savages»: Civilization and savagery in the writings of Otto Finsch.