In 1601, after a Spanish historian published a map showing the islands of the Carolines and the Marianas, north New Guinea, and most of the Solomon Islands, Pacific Island peoples became part of the general history of humankind. Even before geographers accepted French savant Dumont d'Urville's 1832 classification of Polynesia, Melanesia, and Micronesia, the islands entered the European imagination. Polynesia, largely through voyagers' experiences at Tahiti, evoked a new kind of paradise, one including sexual freedom as well as escape from social restrictions in the Old World; to a large extent, the region remains a "legend that sells" for pleasure-seeking holiday-makers. Melanesia, in contrast, has always presented ambiguity—home of untold treasures accompanied by frightful, perhaps monstrous dangers. For example, the world's largest gold and copper mine at Freeport, on the south coast of Irian Jaya, coexists with...