Where Fate Beckons
The Life of Jean-François de la Pérouse
Distributed for University of Alaska Press
304 pages
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17 halftones, 7 maps
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9-1/2 x 6-1/4
French explorer and naval officer Jean-François de la Pérouse (1741–88) was, after James Cook, the greatest explorer of the Pacific in the eighteenth century. In 1785, La Pérouse was commissioned by Louis XVI to head an expedition into the uncharted regions of the Pacific Ocean. Setting out from France, the expedition over the next three years was the first to map the coasts of California, Alaska, and Siberia. From there, La Pérouse continued to Easter Island and Hawaii, where La Pérouse Bay bears his name. After a stop in Botany Bay, Australia, La Pérouse's two ships set out for the Solomon Islands. En route, they encountered a storm and were sunk; despite search efforts over the centuries, no trace of the wreckage of La Pérouse's ships has been found.
Where Fate Beckons tells the story of La Pérouse's life and adventures, along the way providing a lively introduction to the world of French colonialism, the end of the Age of Exploration, and French society in the years leading to the French Revolution.
Glyndwr Williams | International History Review
"The world of Pacificc scholarship owes a considerable debt to John Dunmore, whose monographs, editions of journals, and articles . . . have documented the exploits of French navigators in the great ocean. . . . Dunmore is particularly effective in using the journals to convey the claustrophobic, often squalid conditions on ships crowded with men and animals. . . . [Dunmore's two biographies] provide readbale and balanced accounts of the lives of two navigators who to many in the English-speaking world are little more than names."
Canberra Times
"[Dunmore] wears considerable learning lightly. . . . [He] is consistently excellent."
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