In their previous book, Structural Models in Anthropology, Hage and Haray used graph theory, a branch of pure mathematics, to develop a family of models for the study of social, symbolic, and cognitive relations. With Exchange in Oceania the authors extend these models using ethnographic data from Melanesia, Micronesia, and Polynesia to demonstrate that the language, techniques, and theorems of graph theory provide the essential basis for the description, quantification, simulation, enumeration, and notation of the great variety of exchange forms actually found in Oceanic societies.

In their previous book, Exchange in Oceania, anthropologist Per Hage and mathematician Frank Harary demonstrated that models from graph theory, a branch of pure mathematics, provide the essential basis for analyzing the great variety of exchange systems in Micronesian, Melanesian, and Polynesian societies. In this new book the authors extend these models and apply them to the analysis of communication, kinship, and classification structures in the island societies of Oceania, presenting the relevant topics from graph theory in a form accessible to the nonmathematical reader. The research...

Contrary to common perception and belief, most island societies of the Pacific were not isolated, but were connected to other island societies by relations of kinship and marriage, trade and tribute, language and history. Using network models from graph theory the authors analyze the formation of island empires, dialect groups, economic and political centers; the evolution and devolution of social stratification; and the development of kinship terminologies, marriage systems and descent groups.

Hage and Harary present a comprehensive introduction to the use of graph theory in social and cultural anthropology.