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"Micronesia" is a sweeping term for the many small islands and atolls that span the Pacific north of Melanesia and northwest of Polynesia. It primarily consists of the the Marianas Islands, the Palau Islands, the Caroline Islands and the Marshall Islands.

The Federated States of Micronesia (FSM) is a nation comprised of five distinct cultures in Yap State, Chuuk State, Pohnpei State, and Kosrae State. These islands, also known as the Caroline Islands, stretch in a narrow band across a distance of 1,700 miles east to west just above the equator. The 607 islands, many of them atolls comprised of small islets, total 269 square miles in land area.

To the west of the FSM is the Republic of Palau (ROP), or Belau, consisting of 350 islands totaling 190 square miles of land. At the center of the group is the Island of Babeldaob, which rises to 700 feet in elevation, with a land area of 153 square miles.

To the east of the FSM lies the Republic of the Marshall Islands (RMI), comprised almost entirely of low lying atolls situated in two nearly parallel chains, the Ratak and Ralik. The twentynine atolls and five single low islands of the Marshalls amount to just 70 square miles of land area strewn across 180,000 square miles of sea.

Each of these three nations are in a Compact of Free Association with the United States. Collectively the three are called the Freely Associated States.

The History of Micronesia: A Collection of Source Documents (HOM) is a series of translated and compiled texts, beginning with the period of exploration and early contact of these island groups. The first twenty volumes include transcribed documents from 1521 to 1827. The second series (HOM.S2) consists of Volumes 21 through 48, covering the period of 1819 through 1998.