Tangata o le Moana: New Zealand and the People of the Pacific
Discover a millennium of exploration, encounter, and cultural exchange in this beautifully illustrated history of Pacific peoples in New Zealand.
Damon Salesa
Professor Damon Salesa is the Vice-Chancellor of Auckland University of Technology.
Damon’s books have won the 2012 Ernest Scott Prize (Racial Crossings) and the 2024 Ockham New Zealand Book Award (An Indigenous Ocean). He specialises in the interdisciplinary study of the Pacific, publishing widely on race, politics, history, and society. With a disciplinary grounding in history and a career shaped by interdisciplinary fields such as Pacific Studies, his work also draws on Indigenous Pacific knowledge, particularly Samoan culture and practice. He is also active in critical discussions on education, innovation, and pedagogy, and contributes to public debates on inequality, politics, and education.
He is a Fellow of the Royal Society of New Zealand, an Honorary Fellow of Oriel College, Oxford University, and serves on the editorial board of the Journal of Pacific History.