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Books > History > World history > 1750 to 1900
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The Great Ocean - Pacific Worlds from Captain Cook to the Gold Rush (Paperback)
Loot Price: R673
Discovery Miles 6 730
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The Great Ocean - Pacific Worlds from Captain Cook to the Gold Rush (Paperback)
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The Pacific of the early eighteenth century was not a single ocean
but a vast and varied waterscape, a place of baffling complexity,
with 25,000 islands and seemingly endless continental shorelines.
But with the voyages of Captain James Cook, global attention turned
to the Pacific, and European and American dreams of scientific
exploration, trade, and empire grew dramatically. By the time of
the California gold rush, the Pacific's many shores were fully
integrated into world markets-and world consciousness. The Great
Ocean draws on hundreds of documented voyages-some painstakingly
recorded by participants, some only known by archeological remains
or indigenous memory-as a window into the commercial, cultural, and
ecological upheavals following Cook's exploits, focusing in
particular on the eastern Pacific in the decades between the 1770s
and the 1840s. Beginning with the expansion of trade as seen via
the travels of William Shaler, captain of the American Brig Lelia
Byrd, historian David Igler uncovers a world where voyagers,
traders, hunters, and native peoples met one another in episodes
often marked by violence and tragedy. Igler describes how
indigenous communities struggled against introduced diseases that
cut through the heart of their communities; how the ordeal of
Russian Timofei Tarakanov typified the common practice of taking
hostages and prisoners; how Mary Brewster witnessed first-hand the
bloody "great hunt" that decimated otters, seals, and whales; how
Adelbert von Chamisso scoured the region, carefully compiling his
notes on natural history; and how James Dwight Dana rivaled Charles
Darwin in his pursuit of knowledge on a global scale. These
stories-and the historical themes that tie them together-offer a
fresh perspective on the oceanic worlds of the eastern Pacific.
Ambitious and broadly conceived, The Great Ocean is the first book
to weave together American, oceanic, and world history in a
path-breaking portrait of the Pacific world.
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