Alejandro Malaspina : portrait of a visionary

"Examining the ideas, political views, and ambitions of an extraordinary navigator, John Kendrick takes us on a voyage across the Pacific via South America, the Philippines, New Zealand, Australia, the Tonga Islands, and North America, chronicling the life of Alejandro Malaspina. Malaspina's Pacific voyage of 1789 was the last and most important of his career - a five-year scientific and political examination of the Spanish colonies in the Americas and the Philippines. On his return, Malaspina was commissioned to author a report that would help Spain establish itself as a modern enlightened state. Malaspina's proposal that the king dismiss all his ministers and replace them with individuals who shared his visionary plan resulted in an unanimous vote by the State Council that the plan was seditious and Malaspina was sentenced to ten years imprisonment in the fortress of San Anton. At the urging of Napoleon he was released after serving eight years and was exiled to Italy, where he died in 1810, just as the revolts of the Spanish colonies in the Americas were starting - as he had predicted."--Provided by the publisher.