Samoa, a Hundred Years Ago and Long Before

Published in 1894, this is a rare and intimate portrait of Samoan life at the twilight of a world about to be transformed by colonialism. George Turner lived among the islands' inhabitants for years, and his account pulses with the specificity of someone who knew these people, places, and stories firsthand. He walks readers through the volcanic grandeur of Savaii and Upolu, charts the arrival of Dutch, French, and British navigators, and unfolds the creation myths and genealogies that anchored Samoans to their land and gods. But the book is more than geography or anthropology. It's a elegy for a civilization Turner watched slipping away, written with an urgency that still resonates. For readers hungry for the genuine article, this is not a textbook but a conversation with a vanished time.