Oceania under steam is a lively study of empire and the Pacific in the age of steam. It connects the intimate details of shipboard life with the high politics of imperial ocean space to present a wealth of new insights into the significance of shipping and the sea in the everyday life of colonialism.

Frances Steel is Senior Lecturer in History at the University of Wollongong

Introduction
Part I: Afloat
1. Steam's 'magic touch': routes, rivalries and regionalism in the Pacific
2. A ship of the line: cultures of maritime technology
Part II: Aboard
3. Crew culture: maritime men in an iron world
4. Labour, race and empire: debating the 'lascar question'
5. Guardians and troublemakers: confining women at sea
Part III: Abroad
6. The tropical challenges of the island trades
7. Sitima days in Suva: wharf labourers and the colonial port
8. Indigenous maritime mobilities under colonial rule
Conclusion
Index