Nicholas Halter
Nicholas Halter is an Australian historian who has lived and worked in Micronesia and Fiji. Born in Sydney, he studied history at the University of Wollongong and The Australian National University. Since 2016, he has lectured in Pacific History and historiography at the University of the South Pacific in Fiji.
https://orcid.org/0000-0003-4871-1533
Australian Travellers in the South Seas »
Authored by: Nicholas Halter
Publication date: February 2021
This book offers a wide-ranging survey of Australian engagement with the Pacific Islands in the late 19th and early 20th centuries. Through over 100 hitherto largely unexplored accounts of travel, the author explores how representations of the Pacific Islands in letters, diaries, reminiscences, books, newspapers and magazines contributed to popular ideas of the Pacific Islands in Australia. It offers a range of valuable insights into continuities and changes in Australian regional perspectives, showing that ordinary Australians were more closely connected to the Pacific Islands than has previously been acknowledged. Addressing the theme of travel as a historical, literary and imaginative process, this cultural history probes issues of nation and empire, race and science, commerce and tourism by focusing on significant episodes and encounters in history. This is a foundational text for future studies of Australia’s relations with the Pacific, and histories of travel generally.