Geoffrey Blainey returns to his comfort zone, the winds and waters of the southern seas. He documents the voyages of two European mariners, Cook and de Surville, whose vessels passed unknowingly almost within sight of each other near New Zealand in 1770. Blainey has very detailed journals of Banks and Cook to draw on, but somewhat less information about de Surville's vessel. The result is a bit uneven. Really, this book ends up being about Cook, with de Surville a large appendix. Blainey's attempts to create a 'what if the French had claimed/colonised Australia' scenario fall flat, because de Surville apparently had no interest in making landfall on the eastern coast of Australia. Instead, bad luck and an obsession with 'Davis Land', the undiscovered southern continent between New Zealand and South America meant that de Surville's trading expedition was unsuccessful, although he did sail through seas unknown to Europeans. ( )