Author(s): John Robson

Captain Cook & Pacific Exploration

This new encyclopaedia of the life of the great British explorer James Cook is both a meticulous piece of scholarship and an attractive and accessible reference book for the general reader.

Cook - the ultimate sailor, surveyor, cartographer and explorer - has had much written about him but, inevitably, many of the published works explore only aspects of his career: In The Captain Cook Encyclopaedia the author - with the help of some twenty distinguished scholars and writers - sets out to answer any question about Cook likely to be raised in the study of his life and career. The work is arranged alphabetically and the essay length of each entry gives a proper context to the people, voyages, events, places and ships important in his life, and allows the author to deal in depth with the latest findings. The work is fully cross-referenced and each entry is followed by a suggested reading list for those wanting to pursue a topic further. There are appendices, a full bibliography and a chronology of Cook's life and times.
An introductory essay on Cook's life, from his humble beginnings in Yorkshire to his violent death in Kealakekua Bay at the age of fifty, puts his achievements in context and deals with the latest findings and controversies, and the whole book is rounded off with a careful selection of illustrations and maps. Not only an unrivalled companion to every aspect of his career, The Captain Cook Encyclopaedia is also an ideal introduction to that great century of exploration when Cook, more than any other, delineated the world as we know it today.