Summary

Each ship that ventured into the Pacific around the Cape of Good Hope, through the Strait of Magellan, or around Cape Horn carried the hope and ambitions of its sponsoring nation. The Pacific, perhaps even more so than the Americas or Africa, became the playing board for the global game of imperial chess. By the 20th century, only the most remote and inhospitable islands were free from American, European, or South American colonial administration. Exploring the Pacific, Revised Edition explains how explorers of the Pacific region expanded geographical knowledge and contributed to human understanding by generating maps, charts, paintings, and reports. The book covers such explorers as Bartolomeu Dias, Vasco Núñez de Balboa, Ferdinand Magellan, Álvaro de Mendaña, and James Cook.

Coverage includes:

• Early Pacific navigation
• Art of the Pacific peoples
• The struggle between the Spanish and Portuguese to gain control of the spice trade
• The South Seas Bubble
• Captain James Cook's three voyages in the Pacific
• The real Robinson Crusoe.

Specifications

Full-color and black-and-white photographs, illustrations, and maps. Chronology and timeline. Sidebars. Bibliography. Glossary. Further resources. Web sites. Index.

About the Author(s)

Martha Vail has taught history at Yale University and Tulane University. She served as program officer, writer, and editor for the National Faculty and is a member of the National Council on Public History, Organization of American Historians, and the National Trust for Historic Preservation.