ISBN:
0824810198
Language:
English
DDC:
306'.099
Keywords:
Ethnology
;
Oceania
;
Oceania
;
Social life and customs
;
Ozeanien
;
Indigenes Volk
;
Ethnologie
;
Australien
;
Indigenes Volk
;
Ethnologie
Abstract:
Rezension: For nearly four decades, Oliver's "The Pacific Islands" has been the standard summary work on the people and cultures of the Pacific. It has at last been superseded--by Oliver himself. This new, generously illustrated two-volume set organizes a wealth of ethnographic material on the native people of Polynesia, Micronesia, Melanesia, and Australia, and weaves it together with clear prose that is at once scholarly and relaxed. The first volume covers subsistence, housing, boats, warfare, sex, and exchange, among other topics; the second provides numerous case studies of social relations. The project's vast scope has led to some unfortunate errors in the spelling of local terms and in the bibliography, but this work is nonetheless now the standard reference on the Pacific islands' people. - Glenn Petersen, Baruch Coll., CUNY. "Readers will not see this kind of work again. Oliver's synthesis of pre-colonial Oceanic societies is a landmark in contemporary ethnology."
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