This book brings together new work on Austronesian historical linguistics and culture history to honour Robert Blust. The memoirs in Part 1 reflect on Blust's groundbreaking contributions to these fields over the last 40 years. The remaining 26 chapters contain contributions by leading Austronesianists on a wide range of topics that broadly match Blust's own research interests. The chapters in Part 2 (‘sound change') examine issues in the historical phonology of Austronesian languages. Those in Part 3 (‘grammatical change and typology') deal with morphological and syntactic reconstruction at various levels, from Proto Austronesian down. Methodological and substantive issues in the genetic classification of Austronesian languages are treated in Part 4 (‘subgrouping') and in several chapters in other sections. Chapters in Part 5 (‘culture history and lexical reconstruction') investigate ways in which the close analysis of lexicon, in conjunction with different kinds of non-linguistic evidence, can throw light on the history of Austronesian-speaking peoples.

Several chapters in the volume propose significant revisions to currently accepted reconstructions of PAn phonology and/or morphosyntax. Others focus on the historical development of languages of particular regions, including Taiwan, the Philippines, Borneo, Java, the Strait of Malacca, Sulawesi, the Moluccas, New Guinea, the Solomon Islands, Vanuatu, Polynesia and Micronesia.