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The Pacific a Roundtable Response

I am pleased to have been invited to participate in this roundtable on The Pacific. Apart from the obvious benefit to me of giving my book wider exposure, this provides a useful opportunity for discussion and debate among specialists from varied backgrounds, and showcases historical research on a fascinating region whose importance is growing with every passing year. To my mind, the roundtable format implies using as a catalyst a work which stimulates the scrutiny of problems with both local and general significance, making specialist researchers more aware of what their colleagues in different fields are thinking and doing. It thus encourages scholars to view their own work in a broader context, countering a tendency toward reductionism and facilitating the joint exploration of issues that call out for more attention. A number of the contributors put this objective of advancing the broad, interdisciplinary study of the Pacific and its role in human affairs at the centre of their comments, rather than simply critiquing my book. For example, one contributor's essay comprised an interesting comparison between research on the Atlantic which has been intensively studied in recent years and broad-scale work on the Pacific which appears less prolific but which has been gathering momentum of late. Others pointed to the need for more insightful comparative economic analyses of historical relationships between littoral states and nations of the Pacific basin, and to the need for new perspectives acknowledging the probable future status of the Pacific as a "Chinese Lake." Naturally, critiquing the "catalyst"my book is an important part of this discursive process, but not necessarily its principal aim. Overall, I believe the objectives of the roundtable, as I envision them, have been met in an admirable fashion. Despite the difference in my own background from most of the eight members of the panel, and the sometimes marked disagreements over approaches, emphases and interpretations of several issues that are evident in some of the commentaries, I feel that I have been courteously and indeed kindly treated by the panelists, who have made allowances for my somewhat unconventional approach and have given me a generous measure of "the benefit of the doubt." My response to the points raised by the contributors will be divided into two parts. The first deals with what I would call strategic matters: the issues of the book's intent and purpose, scope and structure, treatment of bibliographic references and sources, and "balance" between breadth and depth. The second part deals with more specific matters, such as passages in the book which some considered problematical because they did not treat a subject in sufficient depth,