Tahiti: A Paradise Lost

By: David Howarth

Sign Up Now! Already a Member? Log In
You must be logged into Bookshare to access this title. Learn about membership options, or view our freely available titles.

Synopsis: "WE HAVE DISCOVERED A LARGE, FERTILE, AND EXTREMELY POPULOUS ISLAND IN THE SOUTH SEAs.... 'TIS IMPOSSIBLE TO DESCRIBE THE BEAUTIFUL PROSPECTS WE BEHELD IN THIS CHARMING SPOT" When Captain Samuel Wallis of the HMS Dolphin brought news of the 1767 discovery of Tahiti back to England, the British believed that they had truly found paradise. The island's natural beauty and fecundity and its inhabitants' striking lack of envy, greed, or hatred seemed to confirm Rousseau's speculations about man's natural goodness. But in less than a hundred years, Tahiti was irrevocably transformed, from a pure, serene land to one infected by disease and afflicted with civil wars and political strife. Using as his guide the journals, ship's logs, letters, and diaries of many of the island's visitors (Herman Melville and Robert Louis Stevenson among them) David Howarth recounts Tahiti's fascinating history. A perceptive and detailed portrait of the original Tahitians and their unique culture sets the stage for this quintessential story of exploration that becomes exploitation and, finally, destruction. "With grace and sensitivity, [Howarth] tells the melancholy story of how a simple civilization crumbled under the intrusive weight of another." Washington Post Book World "David Howarth is that rarest of species, a scholar with a stylish pen." St. Louis Post-Dispatch

No Rating Yet