The Atlantic World in the Antipodes

Book excerpt: This collection of essays stems from a John E. Sawyer Seminar on the Comparative Study of Cultures. Held over two years, the seminar investigated the effects and transformations of ideas, peoples, and institutions from the Atlantic World when carried into the Antipodes. The papers presented in this volume distil some of the key themes to emerge from discussion, each demonstrating the complexity with which discourses and practices operated in the Indo-Pacific oceanic region. Some had unexpected effects, others underwent profound transformation. Always they were changed by the ideas, peoples, and institutions of the Antipodes. Combined, the chapters underscore the ways in which both oceanic worlds were co-produced through a variety of intellectual and practical interactions over the modern period. Essays by leading Pacific scholars such as Margaret Jolly, Anita Herle, and Katerina Teaiwa are joined by essays from key scholars of various regions in the Atlantic World such as Simon Schaffer, Iain McCalman, Sheila Fitzpatrick, and Michael McDonnell, as well as interventions by the new transnationalist breed of Australian historians, led by Alison Bashford and Ann Curthoys.