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CORVALLIS - A Pulitzer Prize-winning historian from the University of California-Davis will provide a different perspective on the Lewis and Clark expedition by looking at some of the Pacific Rim explorers that preceded them.

Alan Taylor will give a free public lecture at Oregon State University on Thursday, May 8, beginning at 4 p.m. His talk, "Thomas Jefferson and the Science of Empire: Pacific Exploration and the Lewis & Clark Expedition," will be held in Dearborn Hall Room 118.

Traditional accounts of the Lewis and Clark expedition usually portray a tale of adventure into the geographic unknown, and to a certain extent, that was the case, Taylor says. Yet the area was not completely unexplored by non-native peoples. Captain James Cook was the most notable of European mariners who already had explored the Pacific coast and Alexander MacKenzie crossed the continent a decade before the Lewis and Clark expedition.

In his OSU lecture, Taylor will talk about the Lewis and Clark expedition's connections to previous exploration of the region.

Taylor specializes in early American history, history of the American West, and history of Canada. He has written three books, including "William Cooper's Town: Power and Persuasion on the Frontier of the Early Republic," which won the 1996 Pulitzer Prize for U.S. history.

The appearance of Taylor is part of OSU's American Culture & Politics Speaker Series 2003, sponsored by the OSU Horning Lecture Series.