The Fatal Impact by Alan Moorehead

Book Description

Secondhand. Good condition. Minor wear to book corners and edges. Previous owner has stamped inside page. Top foredge has sunned.

When James Cook made his landfall in Matavai Bay on April 13, 1769, the population of Tahiti was about forty thousand. By the turn of the century, no more than fifteen thousand remained, and by the end of the 1830s, the figure was down to nine thousand.

When the first ships carrying convicts sailed into Botany Bay, the Aborigines were virtually the only human beings on the Australian continent. A century and a half later, they were almost extinct.

When Cook discovered the icy coasts of South Georgia, he was amazed to find a wealth of marine and bird life. After fifty years, 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 the 1840s. During those years, so-called Western civilisations came up against "primeval innocence". In each case, good intentions led to disaster, corruption, and annihilation, and, ironically, it was Cook, one of the greatest and certainly the most human explorers of his day, who caused the fatal impact. (book flap)