The Carolina, Mariana and Marshall Islands have experienced world war, atomic weapons testing and varying brands of colonialism in the 20th century. Following the seizure of the islands from Japan, agencies of the US government sought to better possess and control the area through a series of developmental initiatives. Interdisciplinary in its approach, this text goes beyond the liberal discourse surrounding modernity to examine what economic development actually entailed. It explores in ethnographic terms how different groups of island people responded to development programmes in multiple, complex, layered and sometimes conflicting ways that reflected their own historical experiences and cultural understandings.