This collection of essays assesses the interrelationship between exploration, empire-building and science in the opening of the Pacific Ocean by Europeans between the early 16th and mid-19th century. Editor from University of Otago, New Zealand.

Contents: Introduction. Part 1 Visions of the Pacific: 'South Sea' to 'Pacific Ocean', O.H.K Spate; Mercator's southern continent: its origins, influence and gradual demise, W.A.R. Richardson; Shared vision: Herman Moll and his circle and the Great South Sea, Dennis Reinhartz. Part 2 The Imperial Sciences Of Exploration: Finding the way home: Spanish exploration of the round-trip route across the Pacific Ocean, Harry Kelsey; 18th century science and the voyages of discovery, J.C. Beaglehole; A Royal Society appointment with Venus in 1769: the voyage of Cook and Banks in the Endeavour, 1768-71 and its botanical results, William T. Stearn; The ship as a scientific instrument in the 18th century, Richard Sorrenson; Banks, Bligh and breadfruit, David Mackay; Scientific books and instruments for an 18th-century voyage around the world: Antonio Pineda and the Malaspina expedition, Barbara G. Beddall; Of fish and men: Spanish marine science during the late 18th century, Iris H. Wilson Engstrand; The search for a sea passage from the Atlantic Ocean to the Pacific via North America's coast: on the history of a scientific competition, Alexei V. Postnikov. Part 3 Cultural Contact, Comparison And Classification: (En)-countering knowledge traditions: the story of Cook and Tupaia, David Turnbull; 'Le Président des Terres Australes': Charles de Brosses and the French enlightenment beginnings of oceanic anthropology, Tom Ryan; Seamen and philosophers in the South Seas in the age of Captain Cook, Glyndwr Williams; Melanesians and Polynesians: ethnic typifications inside and outside anthropology, Nicholas Thomas; The 'oriental renaissance' in the Pacific: orientalism, language and ethnogenesis in the British Pacific, Tony Ballantyne; Minute particulars and the representation of South Pacific discovery, Jonathan Lamb. Index.