By turns harrowing and hilarious, insightful and entertaining, Blue Latitudes brings to life a man whose voyages helped create the 'global village' we know today. He also explores Cook the man: an impoverished farmboy who broke through the barriers of his class and time to become the greatest navigator in British history. Signing on as a working crewman aboard a replica of Cook's vessel, Horwitz experiences the thrill and terror of sailing a tall ship. He also relives Cook's adventures by following in the captain's wake to places such as Tahiti, Savage Island, and the Great Barrier Reef to discover Cook's embattled legacy in the present day. Tony Horwitzs new book, Spying on the South: An Odyssey Across the American Divide, is available now. Tony Horwitz vividly recounts Cook's voyages and the exotic scenes the captain encountered: tropical orgies, taboo rituals, cannibal feasts, human sacrifice.
By the time he died in Hawaii in 1779, the map of the world was substantially complete. When Cook set off for the Pacific in 1768, a third of the globe remained blank.
His ships sailed 150,000 miles, from the Artic to the Antarctic, from Tasmania to Oregon, from Easter Island to Siberia. Captain James Cook's three epic journeys in the 18th century were the last great voyages of discovery.
0 kommentar(er)
