Notes

• Published simultaneously under the title: Discoveries : the voyages of Captain James Cook
• "The result of twenty years’ research into Pacific history, culture, and art, Nicholas Thomas’s Cook is the definitive chronicle of the three world-changing voyages made by Captain James Cook in the 1770s - voyages which substantially recast the known shape of the globe. Through bold and original insights, Thomas also breathes life into the complex and controversial legacy of an often- misunderstood man." "Commonly regarded as the greatest sea explorer of all time, Cook wrote that his ambition led him "not only farther than any man has been before me, but as far as I think it possible for man to go." At a time when ships were routinely lost around the English coast, the son of a Yorkshire peasant made history by expanding our geography - sailing through southern seas previously known only as a blank space on the maps, charting the eastern Australian coast and circumnavigating New Zealand, putting many Pacific islands on the map, and exploring both the Arctic and Antarctic. His men suffered near shipwreck, were ravaged by tropical diseases, and survived frozen oceans; they did so not for conquest but to map the unknown and chart new territory." "Cook’s epic journeys captured the imagination of his time, introducing a European public to heretofore unheard of animals and plants, a barren Arctic and Antarctic, and an erotically charged tropical world. His lieutenants - including George Vancouver and William Bligh - became celebrated captains in their own right, while his naturalist, Joseph Banks, became one of his era’s greatest scientists. Exploits among the native peoples of the Pacific, Australia, and northwest America combined to make Cook a celebrity, a legend, and a hero." "He is not, however, viewed by all as a heroic figure. Some Hawaiians demonize Cook as a syphilitic racist who had a catastrophic effect on local health. Indigenous Australians often see him as the violent dispossessor of their lands. Exploring complicated, interrelated issues from a variety of viewpoints - as has never been done before - Thomas offers greater understanding of a fascinating time and place and new perspective on one of history’s giant figures." "Cook’s life is the story of a world in transition, of the expansion of minds as well as empires. Just as there were other places to live, Cook discovered there were other ways to live. Dealing extensively with Cook’s time in the Pacific, Thomas reconstructs the many sides of encounters that were often curious and unusual for Europeans and Islanders alike: charged with mutual curiosity, animated by pleasure, and often disturbed by violence and disease. These experiences tell us much about the interplay between cultures and about the beginnings of stereotypes that came to dominate Western imaginings of native peoples."–BOOK JACKET