Serendipity

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The second generation of Pacific historians, who began their careers in the 1970s and 1980s, is slowly fading from the academic scene. They have made fundamental contributions to the field of Pacific history, enduring in their impact. The identity of the discipline is now firmly established. This volume is not about their individual research, but about their improbable journeys into Pacific history, why and how they came to it in the first place. Almost without exception, they all argue that they did not choose Pacific history but rather stumbled into the field through serendipity. They came from forays into African Indian, East Asian, French, British imperial, and other fields, enticed into Pacific history through chance or the efforts of kindly mentors. All this is evident in the values and understandings they bring to the subject. The one commonality that binds them is a love of the islands that have been the center of their lifetime work. Many distinguished Pacific historians of the last three decades are represented in this collection. Serendipity follows fourteen autobiographical chapters in which the contributors trace their paths as Pacific historians. They offer their sources of inspiration, supporters, and publications that shaped them as historians. With a significant focus on the importance of teaching and mentoring that they both received and provided, their writing not only illuminates their lives, but the state of the Pacific History as an academic field. The experiences the contributors record here are moving, full of sorrows and regrets as well as achievements and satisfactions: a large part of many careers were spent working in areas other than scholarship, such as high school teaching, consultancies, volunteering, teaching English as a second language, or doing menial jobs just to keep going. A path-breaking form of historiography, this work is essential to the Pacific History field"--