ABSTRACT
This chapter presents an overview of the Pacific Basin region of Oceania. It provides a geographic orientation. The chapter sketches the prehistoric origins of the present ethnocultural diversity in the region. It describes broadly how the region was incorporated into the modern processes of capitalism, globalization, and colonialism. Oceania is literally the heart of the Pacific Basin, a fitting place to begin to understand this vast collection of areas. European explorers and traders began traversing the Pacific Ocean in the sixteenth century. Political instability and the rise of relatively weak democratic states have accompanied political independence for many new nations of Oceania. Economic changes have also been important in the most recent era. Globalization returned during the 1960s and 1970s and continues to the present. This new era of globalization has also allowed the peoples of Oceania unprecedented possibilities for global mobility, trade and exchange, and more general participation in the global political-economy.
