Jane Samson is Assistant Professor in the Department of History and Classics at the University of Alberta, Edmonton. She is editor, with Alan Frost, of 'Pacific Empires: Essays in Honour of Glyndwr Williams' (Melbourne: Melbourne University Press; Vancouver: UBC Press, 1999) and author of 'Imperial Benevolence: Making British Authority in the Pacific Islands' (Honolulu: University of Hawai'i Press and London: Curzon Press, 1998).