The Fatal Impact by Moorehead, Alan - 1966

London, UK: Reprint Society, 1966. Hardcover. Very Good/Very Good. h/b 230 pages, condition is very good. An account of the Invasion of the South Pacific 1767-1840. When 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 not more than fifteen thousand were left, and by the end of the eighteen-thirties the figure was down to nine thousand. When the first ships carrying convicts sailed into Botany Bay on January 18, 1788, 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 1840. During those years' so-called western civilization came up against primeval innocence. In each case, good intentions were to lead to disaster, corruption and annihilation; and, ironically, in each case it was Cook, one of the greatest and certainly the most humane explorer of his day, who was to cause the fatal impact.