In this book Bernard Smith explores in more depth the issued first dealt with in his classic European Vision and the South Pacific. He continues his careful examination of how European artists and scientists travelling to the Pacific during the time of Cook's voyages were stimulated to see the world in new and creative ways.

In analysing intensely personal responses to a new accessible environment, Bernard Smith shows how science, topography and travel had an impact on current pictorial genres. Among many surprising findings he argues that the obligation science placed on art to provide information was a factor in the triumph of Impressionism during the late nineteenth century.

With its breadth of vision and attention to detail, its exploration of the complex relationship between the pursuit of knowledge and the exercise of power, Imagining the Pacific takes its place alongside Bernard Smith's earlier work as a milestone in historical scholarship.