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The paper aims to analyze the Spanish expedition headed by Ruy López de Villalobos, that left from New Spain in 1542. Two documents provide different points of view about the same expedition: (i) one official report, written by García Descalante Alvarado in Lisbon, in 1548; (ii) one letter, written by the Jesuit Cosme de Torres (1510-1570) from Goa (India), in 1549. The comparison of the texts shows how the rivalry between the Spanish and the Portuguese kingdoms were running at the time in the Pacific Ocean. Besides, the second document was edited during the 16th century, which reveals the discursive component in that rivalry. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper considers little-known imagery made by mid-nineteenth century naval officers travelling in the Pacific, which has often been overlooked by art historians. In particular, it examines landscape drawings and prints made by officers travelling on a sequence of voyages through Polynesia, and argues that these need to be understood within the specific context of Anglo-French imperial rivalry in the region focused on the French annexation of Tahiti in the early 1840s. Rather than being simply a transparent set of tourist souvenirs, the views produced by the British officers were self-consciously reiterative, both of each other and also of a genre of exploration imagery deriving from James Cook's seminal Pacific voyages of 1768-1780. As such, they perpetuate and naturalize an image of the islands as tied to a positivist and teleological account of British imperial history, in which the French presence on Tahiti is presented as invasive, aberrant and despotic. Taking these drawings and prints as a case study, it concludes that the mass of similar imagery lying ignored in local and national archives needs to be reviewed as meriting serious art-historical scrutiny. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Publication precedence was as important to scientific endeavours in the late eighteenth and early nineteenth century as it is today. Our study of publication patterns from French scientific expeditions to the Pacific (1785-1840) reveals significant changes to the way in which science was conducted and the levels of control different contributors retained over the resulting publications. Early voyages were characterized by the presence of civilian savants and a lack of centralized control over the resulting voyage publications, either by the Navy or the Muséum d'histoire naturelle. After Baudin's landmark voyage, science was largely conducted by naval officers rather than civilian savants, in a move somewhat contrary to the general professionalization of the sciences at the time. This increased naval control appears to have reduced tensions on the voyages as well as ensuring that most scientific publications appeared in the officially sanctioned voyage narrative, edited by the surviving senior officer. This change, however, did not reduce the scientific value of the voyages. Our research shows that voyages post-Baudin were just as scientifically productive as the earlier ones and the naval scientists on board are still recognized by modern scientists, through citation, as the primary authors of the work they produced on these voyages. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

ABSTRACT The 1976-1977 cold-to-warm sea surface temperature ( SST) shift in the tropical Pacific Ocean, which has been associated with a phase change of the Pacific Decadal Oscillation ( PDO) index, separated a 'La Niña-like' decadal regime from an 'El Niño-like' one. In this article, we analyse the differences of mean of annual and austral-summer ( DJF) temperature, precipitation, and sea-level pressure ( SLP) over South America ( SA) between 1961-1973 and 1978-1990, and explore the occurrence of significant shifts in their time series. Our sources are instrumental records, gridded interpolated data, and reanalyses. Although major regional differences in the intensity of the signal are detected, the climate shift is identified in all variables. In the mid-1970s at annual level, reanalysis SLP data reveal the onset of a step-like anticyclonic circulation anomaly in the southern tip of SA and an abrupt weakening of the Southeast Pacific Subtropical Anticyclone ( SEPA). This latter feature may have partly induced the rapid warming observed along the tropical-extratropical west coast of the continent through the weakening of the cold Humboldt current system. An abrupt warming was also detected in surface air temperature ( SAT) composites located along the coast of the northern part of SA and in Southeastern SA ( SESA). During summer, we found a particularly conspicuous shift-like warming over Southern South America ( SSA, comprising Patagonia). Besides, a shift-like increase (decrease) in annual mean precipitation is observed over Central Argentina and in the tropics, to the south (north) of 10°S. In line with previous studies, we conclude that both the interannual (El Niño-Southern Oscillation, ENSO) and the interdecadal ( PDO) variability modes seem to have had an incidence in the manifestation of the 1970s climate shift, and that its magnitude appears to be unprecedented during the 20th century, as shown in particular by century-long SAT composites from northern Chile and SSA. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

American culture has long associated the nineteenth-century U.S. frontier with episodes of violent death and random bloodshed. But what about the vast watery expanse west of the West? The Pacific Ocean contains its own violent past, especially during the period stretching from Captain James Cook's historic voyages to the California Gold Rush. The nature and degree of this violence stemmed not merely from contact relations between indigenous communities and newcomers, but more specifically from commercial desires, the diffusion of diseases, and the great hunt for marine mammals. Historicizing this violent past remains an imperative for new studies of the Pacific. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This article explores America's earliest engagement with the transpacific world and in particular with China. From the mid-eighteenth century, Americans seeking new economic opportunities considered Asia and the Pacific region important to their development. Taking advantage of their geographical proximity to both the Atlantic and Pacific oceans, Americans developed ways to connect the two regions. These transoceanic networks of trade proved crucial to the economic and political development of the young United States and set the stage for its future influence in the region. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The article analyzes the boundary issues associated with studying Pacific Ocean history. To suggest history drawn from a complex set of boundaries, nested temporalities and geographies requires focus. The approach is to emphasize small islands, large seas and multiple transits--not to concentrate on the continental and economic Rim powers of East and Southeast Asia and the Americas to define the Pacific, but to propose an oceanic history much more located in thinking outward from Islanders and local cultures.