Summary Of The Great Ocean By David Igler

The Great Ocean is a book written by David Igler on the interactions between different cultures from the Pacific Rim region from about 1770 to 1850. Igler is a former graduate of UC Berkeley specializing in Environmental History and the American West and is currently a professor of history at the University of California, Irvine, and the president of the Pacific Coast Branch of American Historical Association. In the category of U.S. Maritime History, Igler won the North American Society for Oceanic History John Lyman Book award. Rather than focusing on the widely studied Atlantic trade, Igler focuses on the trade interactions that occurred throughout the Pacific Ocean including Cook’s voyages, whaling, colonization and empire expansion, California gold rushes and many other related topics. The target audience for this book is for any researcher that is in need of a credible source on the globalization of the Pacific Rim region.

Igler’s thesis is that “The Ocean offered material sustenance, the means to travel or migrate on seacraft, and a spiritual link to the earth’s life force and what lay beyond” (Igler, 5).

Igler supports his thesis by examining and discussing the interactions between different cultures including islanders, Native Americans and Europeans. Igler’s first historical look at the Pacific region starts in 1768, by discussing the three voyages of Captain James Cook and what he and his crew encountered in their explorations. Igler also goes into great detail on why Captain Cook’s voyages were the gateway to the globalization of the Pacific Ocean. After Cook’s voyages, the California Gold rush is a very important theme discussed in the book because it created immigration to west coast of the United States and diverse enculturation of people from all over the Pacific

Ocean.
Igler organized the book very well in chronological order without much jumping back and forth between historical events and his big ideas. The book being so well organized makes it very easy to read and understand Igler’s message throughout the book. Igler’s main focus throughout the book is on the interconnectedness of the Pacific Ocean through trade and exploration of the central and eastern islands as well as the west coast of North and South America. Igler incorporated information from primary and secondary sources in history, geography, oceanography, and cultural anthropology to create The Great Ocean. It is a legitimate wealth of information on the globalization of the Pacific Rim region through cultural interactions as a result of exploration by historical figures like Captain James cook, and the want to trade for different goods. One improvement that could be made to the book is a more detailed map. There is only one map in the book on page 6, and it is fairly under detailed which makes it somewhat difficult when trying to track discussed voyages throughout the book. Overall, Igler displays a very detailed and overwhelming amount of knowledge regarding the globalization of the Pacific Ocean.