Introduction

This introduction presents an overview of key concepts discussed in the subsequent chapters of this book. Transitioning from the largely historiographic orientation of the Introduction, the first part of the volume is focused around literary engagements with Anglo-American imperialism. The book offers a broad-ranging historical overview of the intertwined discourses of Christianity and militarism in the Pacific as a preamble to the more detailed ensuing analyses of the anticolonial writings of contemporary Indigenous Pacific authors. The book investigates the role of, and responses to, Anglo-American imperialism within a range of visual media, from film adaptations of W. Somerset Maugham's 'Rain', to amateur color film footage of US and British colonies in the Pacific produced by 1930s US tourists. The 'special relationship' between Britain and the US was rekindled with the onset of the Cold War, when the UK again became valuable to America as an 'offshore base' and a 'worldwide information listening post'.