At this time he was much influenced by left-wing teachers, especially R. H. Tawney and Harold Laski, and on returning to New Zealand he found it difficult to obtain an academic post owing to his radical views.
[1] His academic career finally took off in 1934 after the publication of his first major book, The Exploration of the Pacific, after which he developed his specialist interest in James Cook.
The sheer size of these tomes, each of them approaching 1,000 pages, may seem disconcerting at first sight, but they are enlivened by Beaglehole's stylish and often witty introductions, intended to set the journals in their contexts.
Much of the zoological and botanical notes for Beaglehole's work on James Cook's three voyages were provided by Dr Averil Margaret Lysaght.
For his edition, Beaglehole sought out the various surviving holographs in Cook's own hand in preference to copies by his clerks on board ship, and others.
Bolckow had purchased this manuscript at an earlier auction, in 1868, but had not made his ownership widely known, and consequently it was assumed for many years that no such holograph existed.
And for the third voyage Beaglehole's main source was a journal written, and much revised, by Cook up to early January 1779, a month before he died.
[9] Just before he died in 1971 Beaglehole was in the process of revising his detailed and authoritative biography of Cook, which was subsequently prepared for publication by his son Tim, who was Chancellor and Emeritus Professor at Victoria.
[10] Beaglehole's alma mater, the Victoria University of Wellington, named its archival collections[11] after him, in the reading room of which is displayed his portrait, by W.A.