Nicholas Thomas has been Director of Museum of Archaeology and Anthropology since 2006. He visited the Pacific Islands first in 1984 to research his PhD thesis on the Marquesas Islands and later worked in Fiji and New Zealand, as well as in many archives and museum collections in Europe, North America, and the Pacific.His books include Entangled Objects (1991), Oceanic Art (1995), Discoveries: the voyages of Captain Cook (2003), and Islanders: the Pacific in the Age of Empire (2010), which was awarded the Wolfson History Prize.
Rich, vivid and deeply provocative, Thomas's work combines premiere adventure story with thorough history and intensive sociology * Publishers Weekly * Epic ... A writer of the rarest quality...wonderful...the definitive volume for this moment in our history -- Simon Winchester Valuable and vivid * Times Literary Supplement * A fabulous new book ... focuses on the extraordinary encounters between Cook's salt-encrusted mariners and the colourful Pacific islanders -- Giles Milton * Living History *