Islands and Cultures: How Pacific Islands Provide Paths toward Sustainability

Between 3,000 and 800 years ago, humans began to settle the Polynesian islands, bringing with them material culture, ideas about societal organization, and biophysical features. This book analyzes the formation of human-environment systems using oral histories, biophysical evidence, and historical records, arguing that the Polynesian islands can serve as useful models for how human societies in general interact with their environments.

Format: Paperback / softback
Length: 248 pages
Publication date: 24 January 2023
Publisher: Yale University Press

Between 3,000 and 800 years ago, humans began to settle the region we now know as Polynesia, bringing with them material culture, including plants and animals, and ideas about societal organization. They then adapted to the specific biophysical features of the islands they discovered. The authors of this book analyze the formation of their human-environment systems using oral histories, biophysical evidence, and historical records, arguing that the Polynesian islands can serve as useful models for how human societies in general interact with their environments.

The islands' clearly defined (and relatively isolated) environments, relatively recent discovery by humans, and innovative and dynamic societies allow for insights not available when studying other cultures. To demonstrate how these cultures adapted to novel environments in the past and how we can draw insights for global sustainability today, Kamana Beamer, Te Maire Tau, and Peter Vitousek have collaborated with a dozen other scholars, many of whom are Polynesian.

Dimension: 216 x 140 (mm)
ISBN-13: 9780300253016