Reimagining the American Pacific: From South Pacific to Bamboo Ridge

An exploration of the "Pacific Rim" in the American imagination and of how the concept has been variously adapted and resisted in Hawaii, the Pacific Islands, New Zealand and Australia. The text ranges from the 19th century to the present and draws on theories of postmodernism, transnationality, and post-Marxist geography to contribute to the ongoing discussion of what constitutes "global" and "local". Wilson begins by tracing the arrival of American commerce and culture in the Pacific through missionary and imperial forces in the 19th century and the parallel development of Asia/Pacific as an idea. Using a range of texts - from works by Herman Melville, James Michener, Maori and Western Samoan novelists, and Bamboo Ridge poets to "Baywatch", films and musicals such as "South Pacific" and "Blue Hawaii", and native Hawaiian shark god poetry - Wilson illustrates what it means for a space to be "regionalised".