Customer Reviews

The Explorations of Captain James Cook in the Pacific

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This first hand account comprised of journal entries with commentary is a fascinating read and provides tremendous detail of Capt. Cook's voyages. I think that for the general reader with an interest in Cook I would recommend Hough's biography as a primary source with this volume as a supplementary text. The two together will provide an excellent view of the accomplishments and adventures of Cook and his crews.

Fascinating personal journals of the famed explorer, who among other exploits discovered and circumnavigated Antarctica, the Hawaiian Islands, eastern Australia and New Zealand. Cook proved that there was no other large land mass in the South Pacific Ocean, a popular myth of his day, and found that there was no navigable Northwest Passage. The son of a grocer, Cook also was responsible for devising a prevention for scurvy, a terribly debilitating scourge of sailors, and for accurately measuring latitude so that discoveries would not be lost to future navigators. Reading his dramatic adventures in his own words is incomparable, and the firsthand description of his death at the hand of native Hawaiians by eyewittnesses is unforgettable. Includes maps and illustrations.

The journal entries were intermittently interesting but the remarks by the editor were frequently irritating in their slavish adoration of this supposedly great man. The best journal entries were those dealing with the encounters with the various south sea aborigines.

One of the best things about this must be its shortness. I see that the Penguin edition of the journals is twice as long. Ouch!

The last chapter is completely devoted to a further elaboration, not to say repetition, of Cook's many, many great qualities, which I only gave the most cursory look, i.e., I skipped it.

Why the editor felt it was necessary to preserve every one of Cook's many misspellings and grammatical gaffs is beyond me, unless it was because he thought that everything related to Cook was divinely inspired. The journal entries' style is also overwritten and convoluted in that upper-class Victorian style.