Acknowledgments
Introduction: Ocean Worlds
1. Seas of Commerce
2. Disease, Sex, and Indigenous Depopulation
3. Hostages and Captives
4. The Great Hunt
5. Naturalists and Natives in the Great Ocean
6. Assembling the Pacific
Conclusion: When East Became West
Notes
Bibliography
Index
David Igler is Associate Professor of History at the University of California, Irvine. His books include Industrial Cowboys: Miller & Lux and the Transformation of the Far West, 1850-1920 and The Human Tradition in California.
"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. David Igler's The Great Ocean
joins a growing list of histories of ocean basins and world
histories that focus on the maritime realm...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."--American Historical
Review
"The Great Ocean pictures the mid nineteenth-century Pacific as
both a graveyard and a seedbed...Tell[s] a grim story of unbridled
hubris, confident consumption, environmental degradation and the
collapse of vulnerable populations."--Times Literary Supplement
"A signal contribution to the growing body of seminal studies on
North America's Pacific ties...Igler's book brilliantly elucidates
the complex interplay between global, oceanic, and local scales of
history....The author's thesis is bold and breaks new ground; his
scholarship is impeccable; and his exposition is clear, succinct,
and at times evocative. A tour de force, The Great Ocean is out in
front on the wave of Pacific
histories."--H-California
"David Igler´s new book truly has a lot to offer: A fascinating
topic, a tremendously entertaining read, an intriguing argument and
numerous colourful, tightly interwoven narratives Igler
demonstrates a seminal and inspiring way to approach a geographical
region as complex and elusive as the Pacific
Ocean."--H-Soz-u-Kult
"An excellent book that tells us much about how the world came to
the Pacific, how the Pacific became part of the world, and how the
so-called eastern Pacific became the United States' Far
West."--Western Historical Quarterly
"Igler makes good use of published and accessible source materials
of the nineteenth century maritime world...as well as the emerging
interdisciplinary realm of cultural geography and history....The
basic theme [of the book]...is an important contribution that is
well delivered in a slender, accessible, and attractive
book."--Oregon Historical Quarterly
"An admirable example of the new international intercultural
maritime history....Igler charts the economic, demographic, and
cultural changes that define the period between the 1780s and 1840s
as one of transformation."--CHOICE
"The Great Ocean transports the reader on the winds of trade or the
trade winds to the multiple worlds of commerce and systems of
knowledge created by Pacific Islanders, Native Americans, and
Europeans. Its scale is grand, embracing waters and lands, humans
and animals, and the imperial Pacific while not losing sight of the
individuals who negotiated that history-a remarkable
achievement."--Gary Okihiro, author of Island Worlds: A History
of
Hawai`i and the United States
"Here is U.S. history, maritime history, Pacific Islands history,
world history, environmental history, labor history, social history
all in one volume, and all beautifully done. A host of
topics--early encounters in the Hawaiian Islands, the economic
significance of whaling, the differences and similarities in how
various powers established their presences in the Pacific, and
more--look different once Igler is done with them. Surprises
abound, but so does
careful, balanced synthesis. What more could a reader
want?"--Kenneth Pomeranz, University of Chicago
"David Igler's The Great Ocean is a majestic contribution to the
globalizing of American history, and an original,
environmentally-informed peregrination around North and South
America, Oceania, and Asia. Igler follows traders and merchants,
epidemic plagues, the slaughter and near decimation of marine
mammals, captives and hostages, and the nineteenth-century
articulation of a truly Pacific-based natural history of geology,
oceanography, climatology,
and American empire. It is an allusive work, engaging, richly
detailed, and full of compelling stories that change our
understanding of life across generations, in and around the world's
greatest ocean."--Matt
K. Matsuda, Rutgers University
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