Transit of Venus : Travels in the Pacific

The Pacific Ocean calls to mind a world of fabulous kingdoms and noble savages, guilt-free sex and gin-clear lagoons, and a perfect idleness fed by lush fruits and fish-rich seas. Ever since Captain Cook first went to Tahiti in 1769 to observe the transit of Venus across the sun, this dream of the Pacific has not lost its force.

But Julian Evans's journey through the island archipelagos of the Great Ocean was also informed by a quest into our more modern myths—such as Peacekeeper missiles and nuclear bombs being tested by the US Army. With humour and vivid imagery, honesty and a wickedly sardonic wit, Evans uncovers the reality of these two Pacific dreams.

A brave new ocean emerges where the islanders have money and booze, military coups and cold-war politics, atomic explosions and rising sea levels, but where, in the remotest atolls, beyond all our modernity and rationality, the old dream of islands continues to assert itself.