"Desert islands are the focus of intense geopolitical tensions in East Asia today, but they are also sites of nature conservation. In this global environmental history, Paul Kreitman explores how the politics of conservation and sovereignty have entangled on islands from Hawai'i to the South China Sea, from the mid-nineteenth century till today"--

Paul Kreitman teaches modern Japanese history at Columbia University.

Maps; List of Figures; Acknowledgements; Naming Conventions; Introduction; 1. Bonins of Contention: Extraterritorial Empire and Borderland Citizenship in the 19th Century Pacific; 2. The Race to Marcus Island: Commodities and Colonisation in the North Pacific, 1885¿1902; 3. Bird and Sovereignty Conservation in the Northwest Hawaiian Islands, 1898¿1911; 4. Sand Dunes and Soldiers: From Phosphate Mining to National Defence (1902¿1939); 5. Disaster: The Abandonment of Japan's Remote Islands, 1902¿1945; 6. Resurrecting the Torishima Albatross: Wild Birds and Sovereignty in Postwar Japan; 7. The Nature of the Senkaku Islands: Biodiversity Conservation in Okinawa, 1945¿2013; Epilogue: Islands and Oceans; Appendix: Japanese islands abandoned, 1868-2013; Select Bibliography; Index.