Beyond Capricorn

Beyond Capricorn

Beyond Capricorn: How Portuguese adventurers secretly discovered and mapped Australia and New Zealand 250 years before Captain Cook is a 2007 book by journalist Peter Trickett on the theory of Portuguese discovery of Australia. Although its thesis is similar to that advanced by Kenneth McIntyre in 1977, Lawrence Fitzgerald in 1984 and others, the publisher and some news reports presented it as being a new theory on the discovery of Australia.

Historical scholars, including Flinders University Associate Professor Bill Richardson, generally reject the premise on which the book is based, pointing out that only circumstantial evidence has been presented which supports the theory.

The book has been translated into Portuguese.On 8 May 2008 the colloquium of specialists in Portuguese maritime history, "Os Portugueses na Austrália", was held on 8 May 2008 at the Science Museum of the University of Coimbra in Portugal, to discuss Beyond Capricorn. The overall consensus of the experts was expressed by the chair of the colloquium, Francisco Domingues, who said: “the Portuguese went to Australia but Australia did not at all interest them”, and “the Portuguese went to Australia; the English discovered it (in the sense of having given to it a place in the community of nations)”.

Read more about Beyond Capricorn:  Synopsis, An Example of Approach - Botany Bay, Criticism of Trickett's Theories