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Distributed for University of British Columbia Press

Pacific Empires

Essays in Honour of Glyndwr Williams

A new interest in European maritime exploration was aroused with the publication of the first volume of J.C. Beaglehole's edition of The Journals of Captain James Cook in 1955. In the forty-odd years since then, our knowledge of this exploration -- and of the imperialism of which it was a part -- has expanded enormously. We now recognise that the scientific endeavours, once seen as disinterested manifestations of the Enlightenment, actually had both strategic and commercial implications. And today much greater emphasis is given to the meanings of early encounters for both the Natives of the Pacific islands and the Strangers from the European world.

348 pages | © 1999

History: Discoveries and Exploration


Table of Contents

Part 1: Explorations, Imperial and Scientific Ventures

To Make Discoveries of Countries Hitherto Unknown: The Admiralty and Pacific Exploration in the Eighteenth Century / Glyndwr Williams

The Spanish Yoke: British Schemes to Revolutionize Spanish America 1739-1807 / Alan Frost

Alexander Dalrymple and the Hydrographic Office / Andrew Cook

An Empire of Science: The Voyage of HMS Herald 1845-1851 / Jane Samson

John Lort Stokes and the New Zealand Survey 1848-1851 / RJB Knight

A Warrant Officer in the Arctic: The Journal of George Ford 1850-1854 / William Barr

Part 2: Encounters and Transformations

The Hegemony of Laughter: Purea’s Theatre / Greg Dening

Vancouver’s Vision of Native Peoples: The Northwest Coast and Hawai’i / Robin Fisher

Whose Scourge? Smallpox Epidemics on the Northwest Coast / Christon I. Archer

The Career of William Ellis: British Missions, the Pacific, and the American Connection / Andrew Porter

Colonised Lives: The Native Wives and Daughters of Five Founding Families of Victoria / Sylvia Van Kirk

Part 3: Reflections

The Great Map of Mankind: The British Encounter with India / P.J. Marshall

Exploring the Pacific, Exploring James Cook / David Mackay

The Works of Glyndwr Williams

Abbreviations

Notes

Index

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