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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 archaeological 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, including the origins of the earth.
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.
Introduction: Ocean Worlds
1. 'Ocean of Business': The Cultures and Geographies of Pacific Commerce
2. Disease, Sex, and Indigenous Depopulation
3. Cultures in Contact: Taking Captives and Hostages
4. Chapter Four: The Great Hunt: Furs, Skins, and Blubber
5. Ch. 5: Naturalists in the 'Great Wide Open'
6. On Coral Reefs, Volcanoes, Gods, and Patriotic Geology; Or, James Dwight Dana and Assembling the Pacific Basin
Conclusion: On Wanderers and Natives
Notes
David Igler is Associate Professor of History, University of California, Irvine.
"[builds] on generations of scholarship by historians in, and of, the Pacific [...] [The Great Ocean makes] great strides towards bringing the Americas into Pacific history and broadening world history to incorporate the Pacific."
– David Armitage, The Times Literary Supplement
"Here is an admirable example of the new international intercultural maritime history. The research is thorough, the analysis sound [...] Highly recommended."
– J.C. Perry, Choice
"Among the numerous accomplishments of this impressive book, the most striking may be its achievement of extending history from its usual terrestrial focus to the ocean [...] Igler's contribution not only puts the sea at the center, but succeeds in telling a story that illuminates both human history and the history of a part of the ocean, the waterscape between the coastal Americas and islands scattered throughout the Pacific [...] Igler's wonderful book will interest social historians, world historians, maritime historians, and others, but among his contributions is the excellent model he provides for ocean history."
– Helen M. Rozwadowski, American Historical Review
