"While Captain Cook went off to measure the world, Georg Forster as his father's scientific assistant and the naturalist artist on board explored recently discovered coastlines and islands including New Zealand and New Caledonia, Tahiti and Tonga. Three years later he spent two weeks in Wèorlitz, where he reported on his voyage in the spirit of the Enlightenment. This volume, lavishly filled with plates, historic paintings and drawings as well as interesting quotations by Forster and his contemporaries conjures up the world of Polynesia with objects from the South Seas including the grass skirt of a Tahitian dancer, two maces from Tonga and an axe of jade-green nephrite from New Zealand."--Provided by the publisher.