Beyond Cook: Explorers of Australia and the Pacific

• Acknowledgment of Country
• Introduction
• Navigating Beyond Cook
• Initial European engagement with the Pacific
• Increased links between Europe and the Pacific
• Australia takes shape
• The other(ed) explorers
• The original explorers
• Conclusion
• Acknowledgements

When Europeans entered the Pacific they entered a place they thought they knew, and a place that was already peopled. European explorer accounts of Australia and the Pacific are fascinating in what they reveal about the people and places explorers encountered, and about European expectations of what they would find. This book is a guide to European exploration of Australia and the Pacific; to those accounts of contact and how to interpret them in the light of European preconceptions and misunderstanding; and to the actions taken by the people descended from the regions' original explorers.