Strands
A range of titles spread across half a dozen broad themes offers a variety of avenues through which interested readers can enter. Starting Points indicate paths into the site's main sections. However, we also have strands running through Antecedents into the different areas of Mapping The North and Themes and Variations.
Readers interested in questions about Portuguese activity on Australia's east coast can track forwards through Antecedents: Iberians to Outward Bound: Portuguese to The Portuguese Question. Antecedents: Iberians also provides an entry point for Six Voyages: Torres after it runs through Outward Bound: Spaniards and Spanish Approaches.
The four Dutch voyages comprise a 'mini-strand' of their own, with a similar lead-in through Antecedents: The Netherlands and Outward Bound: Dutchmen
In that case, the Antecedents run back into prehistory. They include environmental disasters with uncomfortable resemblances to a Northern cyclone season.
Other strands operate on shorter timelines.
English struggles against neighbours in Wales, Scotland, France and Ireland kept them preoccupied until the beginning of the Tudor era. Antecedents: The English begin with the Genoese navigator who changed his name to John Cabot. He also provides a diversion into Themes and Variations through an article that suggests Newfoundland Wasn't Newly Found. Once Francis Drake enters the narrative, Outward Bound: Englishmen runs through pirates, buccaneers and William Dampier before Commodore Anson leads into a flurry of activity in the second half of the 18th century. English Approaches ('Foulweather Jack' Byron, Wallis and Carteret) then deliver a lead into James Cook.
Mapping The North's first section first section might seem ready to wind up at that point. However, French Interest in the South Pacific takes its Antecedents back into Perceptions and Misconceptions. It runs forward to the point where New Caledonia becomes a French colony.
Other strands will appear as Tracing An Outline tracks into Adding Detail.
