The Philip Nicholas Trust Maritime History Lecture With Dr John McAleer. A Historical Association and University of Plymouth History department talk. In their day, Cook's voyages represented maritime achievement and scientific progress on a global scale, bringing Enlightenment ideals to bear on the huge expanse of the Pacific Ocean. Art, science and exploration went hand in hand to fix the bounds of the habitable earth, as well as those of the navigable ocean. Hear Dr John McAleer, Associate Professor in History at the University of Southampton, share his research on the British Empire. His work focuses on the British encounter and engagement with the wider world in the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries, situating the history of empire in its global and maritime contexts. His recent publications include Captain Cook and the Pacific: Art, Exploration and Empire with Nigel Rigby, and Britain's Maritime Empire: Southern Africa, the South Atlantic and the Indian Ocean, 1763-1820.