"Just as geographers have made a substantial contribution to the sutdy of the Pacific, so the Pacific has made a significant impact on the discipline of geography and on certain of its practitioners. Research and reflection on the region was for long limited to a select group of metropolitan institutions, a distant oceanic realm serving simply as an object of their interest. The birth of universities in the islands, notably the University of the South Pacific in 1968, has changed all that. "The margin fades" serves, 25 years on, to measure some of the accomplishments of its geography department ... The thirteen essays presented here offer a refreshingly new portrait of geography in the Pacific ..." -- Back cover.