ABSTRACT
From the fifteenth century until the present day, the region of Oceania has been one of the main stages upon which the dramas of European colonial, commercial and ideological ambitions have been portrayed. The diasporas of northern seafaring nations into uncharted territories beyond the Mediterranean-west to the Americas, south into Africa, east to Asia and even further beyond to the mythical great southern land of Terra Australis-were of an order of magnitude larger than any of the imperial enterprises of antiquity. Each place where European settler societies were translocated belonged to someone else and the long-term consequences of the ensuing battles for control over land, life and resources are clearly evident in the independence, Indigenous land rights, and sovereignty movements of the late twentieth century.
