HIST 372 - Adventure, Science, and Taboo: Captain Cook and Europe’s Pacific Enlightenment

3 hours
The Pacific was the “New World” of the eighteenth century and a center for European led science, exploration, and Imperialism. Centered on the voyages of Captain James Cook, this course examines how Enlightenment Europe’s culture of scientific adventure emerged and travelled to a new world of islands, encounter, and taboo. In so doing, we will examine how contact evolved into control as Europeans processed and defined the Pacific, integrating it into the unfolding mechanisms of European led Imperialism. UG