The Pacific Ocean calls to mind Marco Polo's fabulous kingdoms and the Noble Savage, the guilt-free sex and gin-clear lagoons of Polynesia, and the perfection of idleness on desert islands. Since Captain Cook first went to Tahiti to observe the transit of Venus across the sun, the dream of the Pacific has never lost its force. The journey narrated in this book begins with a much more modern myth - a photograph of a Last Judgement sky glowering on the horizon and spears of light spreading down into the ocean - re-entry vehicles from a "Peacekeeper" missile. It was the source of this man-made vision that Julian Evans decided he had to see. But the journey became a wanderer's tale. Delayed on his way to the "Peacekeeper"'s target by the stories of both white men and islanders, Evans found himself tracing the bizarre outcome of the Pacific dream. For Europeans it is a place of secrets and illusion, where interlopers lose themselves in schemes and drink-fever. For the islanders, beset by gifts of money and military ambitions, there is nowhere else to go. Few places illustrate more powerfully the creeping destructivness of civilization.
- ISBN10 0749391650
- ISBN13 9780749391652
- Publish Date 11 March 1993 (first published 27 April 1992)
- Publish Status Out of Print
- Out of Print 10 October 1996
- Publish Country GB
- Publisher Vintage Publishing
- Imprint Minerva
- Edition New edition
- Format Paperback (B-Format (198x129 mm))
- Pages 356
- Language English