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Pacific Romanticism Tahiti and the European Imagination
Alexander H. Bolyanatz
Book Code: H787
ISBN: 0-89789-787-0
ISBN-13: 978-0-89789-787-7
148 pages, map
Praeger Publishers
Publication: 10/30/2004
List Price: $87.95 (UK Sterling Price: £49.95)
Availability: In Stock
Media Type: Hardcover
Trim Size: 6 1/8 x 9 1/4
Subjects: Reviews:
  • Bolyanatz analyzes what is perhaps the single most influential set of reports on Polynesia--those of the French discovery of Tahiti in 1768. He then goes on to describe how anthropologists romanticized the apparent freindliness of the natives, erroneously attributing the sexual availability of Tahitian women to their hospitable nature rather than their fear of European guns. Finally, he traces the impact of these events on European intellectual history from the time of the discovery to the present day.
    —Reference & Research Book News     August 2005
Description: Europeans' romanticist imaginings of people from the South Pacific have been around since the Enlightenment and have been significantly informed by the accounts of voyages to Tahiti by people such as Louis Bougainville. This book shows that the overtly promiscuous behavior that the French perceived as hospitality on the part of the Tahitians in 1768 was actually a defensive ploy, and that our contemporary image of sex and sexuality in Pacific Island societies is influenced by a fantasy based on this French misperception. This volume takes a very detailed look at traditional Tahitian culture and society and provides a realistic description of what happened on Tahiti when Europeans encountered the people who lived there. Bolyanatz provides a very readable history of South Pacific exploration and Enlightenment thinking. Anyone interested in the development of Enlightenment thought and the way it has developed since the 18th century will enjoy this book.
Table of Contents:
  • Preface
  • Introduction
  • 1767
  • The French
  • Interpreting Tahiti
  • Pacific Romanticism in Anthropology
  • The British
  • Other Voyages
  • Conclusion
  • References
LC Card Number: 2004054662
LCC Class: DU870
Dewey Class: 996
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