"An impressive array of sources has been synthesized to provide this overview of the immensely complex history of an island that straddles Southeast Asia and the Pacific.... Highly recommended" --Choice, April 2004

"This book should become one of the first points of reference for any reader seeking information on New Guinea.... This is a definitive work that should be in every library in Australia." --Australian Historical Studies 124 (2004)

"A highly readable, interdisciplinary account of the human history of the entire island. In this well researched and scholarly book, Dr. Moore manages an all-important overview of a very extensive period. I believe it is of interest, and hopefully in some cases, an inspiration to students and scholars and the general readers of Pacific and Indonesian history, anthropology and prehistory." --South Pacific Journal of Philosophy and Culture 3 (2003)

"This is an attractive book, well written and never boring, and this reviewer recommends it to all who would like to know more about New Guinea without getting bogged down in the monumental detail of a large literature." --Bijdragen tot de Taal-, Land- en Volkenkunde 161 (2005)

"This handsome volume confirms Clive Moore's reputation among historians of the Pacific Islands as a tireless researcher who presents reliable information in admirably straightforward prose. It is almost needless to say that the University of Hawaii Press has edited and presented this ambitious volume with elegance and meticulous care." --Australian Journal of Politics & History 50 (2004)

"This is an excellent and important work, clearly written, always tight and controlled, with many good clear maps, a number of photographs, well laid out and presented by University of Hawai'i Press. It provides both a new geographical perspective, with the boundaries removed, and a sweeping historical perspective, which is particularly useful to readers lacking competence in Dutch and German, but interested in understanding the complexities of trade, settlement and explorations in the west." --Journal of Pacific History 40 (2005)

"A model of thoroughness in its research, a monumental achievement in its scope" --Journal of Pacific Studies

New Guinea, the world's largest tropical island, is a land of great contrasts, ranging from small glaciers on its highest peaks to broad mangrove swamps in its lowlands and hundreds of smaller islands and coral atolls along its coasts. Divided between two nations, the island and its neighboring archipelagos form Indonesia’s Papua Province (or Irian Jaya) and the independent nation of Papua New Guinea, both former European colonies. Most books on New Guinea have been guided by these and other divisions, separating east from west, prehistoric from historic, precontact from postcontact, colonial from postcolonial.

This is the first work to consider New Guinea and its 40,000-year history in its entirety. The volume opens with a look at the Melanesian region and argues that interlocking exchange systems and associated human interchanges are the "invisible government" through which New Guinea societies operate. Succeeding chapters review the history of encounters between outsiders and New Guinea's populations. They consider the history of Malay involvement with New Guinea over the past two thousand years, demonstrating the extent to which west New Guinea in particular was incorporated into Malay trading and raiding networks prior to Western contact. The impact of colonial rule, economic and social change, World War II, decolonization, and independence are discussed in the final chapter.

Clive Moore is reader in history and head of the history department at the University of Queensland, Brisbane.