The Fatal Impact

Moorehead has followed up his fascinating trek into Africa (The Blue Nile & The White Nile), with a short, but equally elegant "account of the invasion of the South Pacific, 1761-1840." The hero here, of course, is Captain James Cook, with Moorehead concentrating on the voyage to Tahiti, New Zealand & Australia, & the later exploration of the Antarctic Circle & the South Pole. As acknowledged, he's drawn heavily on the historian J.C. Beaglehole's definitive volumes, as well as from other weighty sources. But this should not dismay the layman. He has the novelist's eye, not only in his firm but sensuous descriptions, but also in his stunning ability to evoke character, interweave various tales, & see a Jumble of facts & conjectures as a means of releasing whatever dramatic moments are around. The confrontation between aggressive Europeans & innocent primitive tribes affords ample opportunity. The book is a requiem for an idyllic past, moving in its picture of a wild civilization slowly eroding under the impact of commercial progress or geographical expansion, exciting in its interplay of differing psychological attitudes or customs, & developed with many crisscrossing references: Bougainville & Banks, Melville & Gauguin, the Bounty mutiny & the little known efforts of the Englishwoman Daisy Bates to save the Aborigines. A lovely, sophisticated work.

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