Description
Second Hand Book
When Cook made his landfall in Matavai Bay on April 13, 1769, the population of Tahiti was probably around forty thousand; by the turn of the century not more than fifteen thousand were left, and by the end of the eighteen-thirties the figure was down to nine thousand. When the first fleet of eleven ships under the command of Captain Phillip and carrying about eight hundred convicts sailed into Botany Bay on January 18, 1788, the aborigines were virtually the only human beings on the Australian continent; a century and a half later, their epitaph was to be written in the indomitable Daisy Bates’s Passing of the Aborigines. When Cook discovered and claimed for Britain the icy coasts of South Georgia., a desolation without a tree, he was amazed to find such a wealth of marine and bird life; in the ensuing fifty years the killing of whales and seals was to reach such a pitch that eventually there was virtually nothing left to kill. These three facts form the tragic basis of Alan Moorehead’s study of the invasion of the South Pacific between 1767 and 1840. During those years, so-called western civilization came up against primeval innocence in Tahiti, Australia and the Antartic. In each case, good intentions were to lead to disaster, corruption and annihilation; and, ironically in each case it was Cook, one of the greatest and certainly the most humane explorer of his day, who was to cause the fatal impact.
Specifications:
Condition: Fair. General wear and faded cover. Some slight markings on fore edge.
Publisher: Penguin
Year: 1966
Format: Paper back
Pages: 281
ISBN: 0140027734
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