Here is a true story of discovery, adventure, and settlement in the wide expanses of the Pacific Ocean from the first hazardous voyages of Magellan to World War II.

The earliest explorers came in search of easy routes to the wealth of China and the Spice Islands. Magellan opened the way for the later voyages of Sir Francis Drake and James Cook. Mr. Rabling reviews their important achievements and goes on to explain why Spain, Russia, and Japan each abandoned early ambitions to dominate the Pacific. In the end, it was the free enterprise of the English-speaking peoples that finally determined the destiny of the continent of Australia, the Western shores of the Unites States and Canada, and the many islands sprinkled across the largest of oceans.

Here is the epic story of the sealers and the sandalwood cutters stripping the islands of their wealth and trading furs and wood in China for oriental goods. It is the story, too, of the hardy seamen from New England, hunting whale in every part of the ocean and facing shipwreck, murder, and mutiny on the high seas.

Finally, and most important, Mr. Rabling describes the frantic rush for gold in the middle of the nineteenth century—in California, in Australia, in British Columbia, and in New Zealand — and evokes the exciting era of the clipper ships, designed to fill the demand for fast passage to the gold fields. The gold of the Pacific inspired a massive migration of free people, to gain wealth, to colonize, and to lay the foundations for its great democracies of today.

Harold Rabling brings to The Story of the Pacific a personal knowledge of the countries about which he writes. Born in Australia, Mr. Rabling has practiced his profession of mining engineer in both the gold fields of Australia and the lead-zinc mines of western United States.

From the dust jacket