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Title: Farther Than Any Man: The Rise and Fall of Captain James Cook by Martin Dugard ISBN: 0-7434-0069-0 Publisher: Washington Square Press Pub. Date: 30 July, 2002 Format: Paperback Volumes: 1 List Price(USD): $14.00 |
Average Customer Rating: 3.94 (18 reviews)
Rating: 3
Summary: Every Journey needs a beginning
Comment: By no means a definitive account of Cook's life, but certainly a readable introduction to the legacy of this man.
Martin Dugard has touched lightly on many of the pressures Cook must surely have felt - His family, his birthright and position in society, his ambition, the relationship with his father, England's position in the World and the birth of Empire. It would be impossible to do all of this justice in just 300 pages, and I don't believe that Dugard is really attempting to. Instead, he offers the topics like a light buffet - take what you want, go and look for more on what interests you.
This informal style, laced with conjecture as to conversations or motives, will infuriate the purist historians. This book will also not appeal to those who hold Cook up as a definitive British hero. The author speculates on Cook's rationales and motives, but the message clear: Cook did indeed go father than any man. He led the world into a new era, both through his geographical discoveries and the courage he displayed in attaining them.
French Navigator Jean-François de Galaup de La Pérouse said of Cook that his work was so all-encompassing, there was little for his successors to do but admire it. This is not an all-encompassing account of Cook, but an easy place to begin your own voyage of discovery.
Rating: 3
Summary: A journalist's jolly jaunt
Comment: Dugard's account of the life of explorer James Cook is a light, easily read introduction to England's greatest explorer. Dugard stresses the travails of a man of humble beginnings who, through force of his own will and some fortuitous connections garnered command of the first solo expedition into the South Pacific. He describes Cook's early voyages on colliers, moving on to his decade-long exploration of the Newfoundland coasts. Lured away by the glories of the Royal Navy, Cook entered that force as a lowly seaman but rose rapidly to junior officer due to his cartography skills and forceful sense of drive.
Dugard dubs Cook "the original adventurer." Other expeditions had concentrated on map-ping coastlines along regularly used routes or finding harbours to serve as sanctuaries or supply bases. Cook's voyage in the Endeavour was the first journey dedicated to scientific studies. Cook's mandate was to convey a team of scientists to Tahiti. There they would study the rare phenomenon of Venus' transit across the face of the sun, adding to the navigator's store of tools. From that mid-Pacific isle, however, Cook was free to seek the legendary Southern Continent, particularly Antarctica. Given a mandate to wander the Pacific, Cook found yet another landmass, the island continent of Australia.
Dugard portrays Cook as impelled by several ambitions. To become the premier explorer of the Pacific, to bask in the adoration of its peoples, and show Britain's class-bound society that the son of a farm labourer was the equal of any aristocrat. He achieved all these aims, but at the usual cost to a man overcome by hubris. He went too far, barely staving off mutiny by a crew that adored him. In the end, of course, an act of arrogance cost him his life in Hawaii. Through all this tale of a man burdened by ambition, Dugard offers us glimpses of Elizabeth Cook who remained in England almost mindlessly cheering on her husband's goals. While Cook sailed as far as from the Earth to the Moon, Elizabeth bore and buried a succession of children. When the reader feels the urge to learn of her outlook in more detail, Dugard reminds us of her burning the Cook correspondence, eliminating any record of her thoughts. Unrestrained by evidence, Dugard blithely presents her viewpoint, derived from assumptions.
Given the wealth of books available on Cook and his voyages, this one stands well down on the list of "must read" titles. Only someone with a superficial interest in the explorer and his journeys would find this useful. A good introductory overview, its lack of bibliography or even an index renders this title merely a journalist's superficial exercise. There are simply too many scholarly books on Cook, some well written, to warrant spending much time with this one. Save it for the beach or cottage.
Rating: 4
Summary: Good overview
Comment: "Farther than Any Man" is a good beginning overview of the remarkable life and career of Captain James Cook, who circumnavigated the world twice, discovered Autralia's Great Barrier Reef as well as Hawaii, and missed discovering Antarctica by 50 miles, all in the 1700s. It reads briskly, which makes it highly suitable for a popular audience. Some of the places Cook visited are only touched on briefly, but overall we get a good idea of what life was like onboard ship and what drove Cook to venture "farther than any man." We see his character develop from shy underling to commanding presence, as he escapes the class politics of England to make the Pacific his personal exploring playground until the tragic downfall of his third voyage. Dugard has obviously visited many of the places that Cook did, but he mercifully confines his narrative to Cook and his time, instead of inserting long, boring personal adventures of the author the way Tony Horwitz did in "Blue Latitudes." Meanwhile, I think Dugard's own book "Into Africa" about Stanley and Livingstone exceeds his Cook book in depth and detail, but I came to this book knowing little of where Cook went or what he did, and I came away with a serviceable knowledge and an appreciation of the man's accomplishments. (One other thing, there is a nice general map of Cook's voyages but I could have used a little more visual detail or a few other maps with it. I would also like to have seen a portait of Cook.)
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Title: Into Africa : The Epic Adventures of Stanley and Livingstone by MARTIN DUGARD ISBN: 0385504519 Publisher: Doubleday Pub. Date: 06 May, 2003 List Price(USD): $24.95 |
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Title: Over the Edge of the World: Magellan's Terrifying Circumnavigation of the Globe by Laurence Bergreen ISBN: 0066211735 Publisher: William Morrow Pub. Date: 14 October, 2003 List Price(USD): $27.95 |
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Title: The Bounty: The True Story of the Mutiny on the Bounty by Caroline Alexander ISBN: 067003133X Publisher: Viking Press Pub. Date: 15 September, 2003 List Price(USD): $27.95 |
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Title: Captain James Cook by Richard Hough ISBN: 0393315193 Publisher: W.W. Norton & Company Pub. Date: March, 1997 List Price(USD): $18.95 |
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Title: Sea of Glory: America's Voyage of Discovery, the U.S. Exploring Expedition, 1838-1842 by Nathaniel Philbrick ISBN: 067003231X Publisher: Viking Press Pub. Date: 10 November, 2003 List Price(USD): $27.95 |
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