Travels in Oceania: Memoirs of a Whaling Ship's Doctor

FROM THE PUBLISHER

Travels in Oceania takes the reader to New Caledonia, the Chatham Islands, the South Island of New Zealand, Tahiti and Hawaii. Thiercelin made two voyages in the Pacific, twenty years apart, on the Ville de Bordeaux 1837-41 and the Gustave 1861-64. He provides a rare point of view - that of a well-informed, educated European who was neither a missionary nor a government official. While his ideas were limited by the ethnocentricity of his time, his commentary on the French and English colonisation of the Pacific is insightful and often critical. He compares the different attitudes taken by the various governments towards both settlers and indigenous people, and advocates 'the power of the word rather than that of the sword' in colonial matters. Thiercelin had an unusual perspective on the Pacific because he visited many places twice, with a twenty-year gap in between. There are moments of great poignancy in his text, especially when he describes the 'before' and 'after' of colonisation, none more so than in his description of Akaroa Bay. Travels in Oceania is an account based on journals kept on the author's voyages. It is full of anecdotes and details of personal encounters, especially with settlers, and shares the private thoughts of an interesting man.

FROM THE CRITICS

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