This text evaluates how anthropological research in the Trust Territory has affected the Micronesian people, the US colonial administration and the discipline of anthropology itself. It analyzes the interplay between anthropology and history, in particular how American colonialism affected anthropologists' use of history, and examines the research that has been conducted by American anthropologists in specific topical areas of sociocultural anthropology. The text concentrates on disciplinary concerns, but also considers the connections between work done in the era of applied anthropology and that completed later when anthropology was persued mainly for its own sake.

Provides basic reference material on Micronesia, a region encompassing a vast area of the tropical western Pacific Ocean. Includes the Mariana, Caroline, Marshall, and Gilbert islands and the island nation of Nauru.