Longitude and Empire: How Captain Cook's Voyages Changed the World by Brian W. Richardson

Abstract

her focus isdefinitelyon thatcorporation. The second chapter carries the story to construc tion ofBunkerHill's lead smelteratKellogg in 1917,during a period inwhich the company was vying fordominance in the districtwith other parties, especially Charles Sweeny, the FederalMining & Smelting Company, and the American Smelting& RefiningCompany (later ASARCO). One of the important episodes during thatperiod was theapex litigationover rights tomine portions of the Last Chance claim. Fahey's book on Sweeny gives the case considerable attention, citing court records and ASARCO papers towhich he had access. Aiken tells the story almost entirely through Bunker Hill papers. Although she quotes a line fromFahey's book about the apex law in general, she does not compare theperspective she derives from the Bunker Hill papers with Fahey's perspective on the litigationpresented inBallyhoo Bonanza. Sticking close to theaccount available in the BunkerHill records serves Aiken well, however, inthe thirdchapter, in which she focuses on the close business and personal relationship that developed between BunkerHill president Fred erickBradley,who lived in San Francisco, and BunkerHill manager StanleyEaston,who lived inKellogg and became BunkerHill's president afterBradley's death. The twomen formed the corporation and its mining operation into the significant enterprise that itwas. The book gains strengthas itprogresses, describing the Depression and war years in chapter four, and thepost-war period inchapterfive.Perhaps the best chapter of thebook is the last, which cov ers theperiod 1968-1981, when Gulf Resources executed a hostile takeover of theBunker Hill Company, the companywas embroiled inpro found environmental controversies, and the parentGulf Resources decided toclose theBun kerHill operation, leavingKellogg without its major employer.Through nearly one hundred years of operating, Bunker Hill made major contributions toAmerica's mining industry and to the social, labor, technological, and environmental histories associated with the industry. Aiken's book is a welcome addition to the scholarship on American mining. Fredric L. Quivik Philadelphia, Pennsylvania LONGITUDE AND EMPIRE: HOWCAPTAIN COOK'S VOYAGES CHANGEDTHE WORLD byBrian W. Richardson University of British Columbia Press, Vancouver, 2005. Illustrations, maps, notes, bibliography, index. 256 pages. $85.00 cloth, $29.95 paper. Although it is smoothlywritten, thisbook is not a straightnarrative of explorations or a companionable bedside book for readers of C.S. Forester or Patrick O'Brian. Instead, it develops the sweeping intellectual argument indicated in the subtitle. Bymapping the Pacific Ocean with good instruments fordetermining both longitude and latitude, JamesCook introduced new and widely influentialconcepts of space, territory, cultural identities,and political power. Earlier explorershad tracedcontinental coastlines that were separated by vacant seas; Cook crossed vast oceans with confidence and produced accurate maps of particular islands and their places in a fully explored world. He also fo cused on islands as confined territories that sustained varied and distinct cultures.He thus opened amore complexway of thinkingabout Native peoples ? not as savages or barbarians contrasted with civilized Europeans, but as societies shaped by local geographies. Cook's narratives, maps, and platesmade itpossible for readers tohold the complex modern world in theirhands as theytook up his volumes and to reconsider their ideas of sovereignty, national ism, and empire. This argument retains some telltaleblem ishes from its origins as a political science dissertation. It is repetitiveand overemphatic on some points, allusive and sketchyon oth Reviews 473 ers. Readers are expected to recognize the basic ideas inHobbes, Locke, Rousseau, Kant, and Bentham and have fresh acquaintance with works by Paul Carter,Michel Foucault, Marshall Sahlins, Edward Said, and Elizabeth Eisenstein.There isalso some slipperyhandling of the term"Cook's voyages."At various points itseems to mean: thepracticesof James Cook as a brilliant navigator and explorer; the explora tionsCook and others achieved in three long journeys in thePacific; subsequent publications inwhich Cook's work was edited, rewritten, amplified, and illustratedby others;new nauti cal and print technologies, which Cook's works embodied and exemplified; some of theabove; or all of theabove. Inorder tobuild his central points about political concepts and persua sions,Richardson has to slight some of these many layers. Nevertheless, hiswork exposes a vital nerve inmodern history, especially for students of thePacificNorthwest. As late as the 1720s,writers such as Daniel Defoe and Jonathan Swift could freely spin fables about far-flung islands and describe a land of gross but rational...