‘This classic, clear-eyed account’, writes renowned historian Bill Gammage, is the most comprehensive record of first contact anywhere in the world’.

Middle Kingdom chronicles the European ‘discovery’, exploration, ‘pacification’ and development of the Papua New Guinea Highlands to 1975, during the decades when PNG was an Australian colony. Jim Sinclair’s book goes far beyond sagas of exploration to document the region’s development through administration, industry and a growing infrastructure.