Beyond the Coral Sea: Travels in the Old Empires of the South-West Pacific

This text presents a romantic and adventurous look at the remarkably diverse cultures of the hidden paradise islands surrounding Papua New Guinea. The islands of the Coral, Solomon and Bismarck Seas were the last inhabited places on earth to be explored by Europeans and remain largely unspoilt, despite the former presence of German, British and Australian colonial rulers. Michael Moran describes eccentric residents past and present such as "Queen Emma" of New Britain, born of an American father and a Samoan mother, who built up a large empire of copra plantations, traded in the fabled obsidian (black volcanic glass) and entertained on a lavish scale with imported food and French champagne. Superstition, magic rites and the occult are explored as well as the historic anthropological work of Malinowski in the Trobriand Islands; and the author encounters a host of adventurers, mercenaries, explorers, missionaries and prospectors on his wide-ranging travels