Captain Cook: A Legacy Under Fire (Hardcover)

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Editorial Reviews

From Publishers Weekly

Already published and praised in England, this first book by British columnist and news anchor Collingridge presents a new take on the life of Captain James Cook, the British explorer and navigator whose journeys led to the "discovery" of Australia and the Hawaiian islands. After becoming fascinated at an early age with Cook's 18th-century exploits, Collingridge discovered during college at Oxford that a distant cousin, George Collingridge, more than 100 years after Cook's death, had risked his reputation with a convincing claim that Cook had not been the first to reach Australia. After spending "months trawling through map-room and libraries, retracing their footsteps," the author was able to produce this engaging account that links three decades-"a dance of a tango of three." Collingridge intercuts finely detailed chapters on Cook's exciting major explorations with her ancestor's more bookish investigation of newly discovered maps indicating that "the Dutch had certainly reached Australian shores at the start of the 17th century," which led to their mapping of western Australia, and that the Dutch documents were actually based on earlier maps made by the Portuguese. The author aptly achieves her stated goals of investigating Cook's real story, expanding the British version of Cook that is based on the way countries "manipulate history," and introducing a modern audience to the ongoing controversy over the Dutch-Portuguese maps.
Copyright 2002 Reed Business Information, Inc.

Review

"Collingridge intercuts finely detailed chapters on Cook's exciting major explorations with her ancestor's more bookish investigation of newly discovered maps. An excellent book...a careful and deliberate account of exciting historical and psychological events."
--Publishers Weekly

"Collingridge goes beyond the usual litany of what he did and tries to get at who he was. Her work on Cook is excellent, and her book is a worthy addition to the bookshelf." --The Columbus Dispatch
-- Review --This text refers to the Paperback edition.

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Product Details

• Hardcover: 384 pages
• Publisher: The Lyons Press; 1st edition (September 1, 2002)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 1585747254
• ISBN-13: 978-1585747252
• Product Dimensions: 9.2 x 6.4 x 1.3 inches
• Shipping Weight: 1.5 pounds (View shipping rates and policies)
• Average Customer Review: 4.6 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (5 customer reviews)
• Amazon.com Sales Rank: #2,355,717 in Books (See Bestsellers in Books)

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Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

6 of 6 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Global Exploration with Heroism and Civility, October 25, 2002

By	Robert Morris (Dallas, Texas) - See all my reviews (TOP 50 REVIEWER)    (REAL NAME)

For various reasons, there continues to be substantial interest in great explorers such as Ernest Shackleton, Meriwether Lewis and William Clark, Robert Falcon Scott, and James Cook. This the first of two books about Cook which I recently read and thoroughly enjoyed. (The other is Tony Horwitz's Blue Latitudes: Boldly Going Where Captain Cook Has Gone Before.) They discuss a common subject but from different perspectives. I highly recommend both. Of special interest to me is what Collingridge learned about an ancestor, George Collingridge (1847-1931), while consulting an abundance of research resources. He was among the first to challenge the generally accepted belief that Cook was the first to "discover" Australia during various voyages. (Cook traveled more than 200,000 miles during the years 1768-1789, limited by crude navigational instruments but sustained by his superior skills as a seaman.) Of her ancestor Collingridge observes: "He was eccentric and colorful and too given to whims of fancy and dreadful puns, but the bulk of his [own] research is basically sound." Both Horwitz and Vanessa Collingridge seem to agree that Cook was -- as was Shackleton -- a great leader. Also, that he treated the native people "with a decency that shattered all convention." Those who share my high regard for this book are urged to read Horwitz's.

2 of 2 people found the following review helpful:

3.0 out of 5 stars PACY RECOUNTING OF THE COOK STORY AND LINKS WITH COLLINGRIDG, November 1, 2003

By A Customer

Vanessa Collingridge has written a pacy book that nicely describes the 3 expeditions of Cook to the Pacific and focuses on his cartography, his ideas about scurvy, his ideas about how to relate to the peoples encountered...and about the links between the Cook mythology (eg discoverer of Australia) and reality (he was not the first).

It's annoying the book I bought (hardback) did not contain better maps...(there were virtually none)...so I had trouble following the twists and turns of Cooks travels.

0 of 1 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Charts all of Cook's voyages of exploration, February 11, 2003

By	Midwest Book Review (Oregon, WI USA) - See all my reviews

This superbly presented history charts all of Cook's voyages of exploration; from his mapping of the Pacific Islands and travels through Antarctica to discoveries of New Hebrides and Australia. His many adventures receive lively coverage in a title which explains how Cook changed the Western map of the world - and reveals that he was not the first to do so. An involving re-examination of Cook's achievements.