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Books : Blue Latitudes: Boldly Going Where Captain Cook Has Gone BeforeIn association with Amazon.comby: Tony Horwitz  Availability: Usually ships in 1-2 business days
EAN: 9780965047395 ISBN: 0965047393 Label: Henry Holt and Company Manufacturer: Henry Holt and Company Number Of Pages: 480 Publication Date: 2002 Publisher: Henry Holt and Company Studio: Henry Holt and Company Sales Rank: 812651 Related Items:
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 Rating:  - Bad Day at Black RockIn my research for Wai-nani, High Chiefess of Hawaii, I read a dozen accounts of Captain James Cook's deadly encounter with the natives of Hawaii in 1779. This included not only the Captains' journal, but that of seaman, John Ledyard, and that of first mate, Lt. King. When Tony Horwitz declared that in Blue Latitudes he would take us boldly where Captain Cook had gone before, I didn't expect to learn anything new. What I found was the most informative, well ... Read More Rating: - Cook'n with HorwitzAn author such as Tony Horwitz is a rare find. After reading his latest release (as of this review), "A Voyage Long and Strange", I had to backtrack to "Blue Latitudes". Glad I did. Horwitz' slant to history is savvy with modern day adventure, wit and insight. Following in the wake of Captain James Cook's three world voyages of the eighteenth century, the author painstakingly confronts hundreds of present day individuals from several South Pacific Islands, New Zealand, ... Read More Rating: - Another good readWhile this is one of his earlier books, i just discovered this author and love his interplay of current experience and history. As in his other works, a new level of understanding emerges about the earliest interplay of European contact with the native peoples and, unfortunately, the consequences that are with us today. Highly recommended. Rating:  - Engaging, if scatteredHorwitz's gambit is to retrace Cook's voyages as he chronicles his life. It's a good idea, and it's interesting (if depressing) to learn what Cook's stops have turned into. (Tahiti, once a paradise, is now a shabby tourist trap.) Horwitz's own explorations are given equal time to Cook's, which means that the biography of Cook is somewhat less detailed than you might want it to be. But he's an engaging writer. Check my list, "Books About Explorers," for more recommendations. Rating: - Paradise debunked (Again!)Well, consider paradise thoroughly debunked, between Horwitz's far-ranging journeys of disassembly here and J. Maartin Troost's more narrowly focused The Sex Lives of Cannibals: Adrift in the Equatorial Pacific about real life on a South Pacific speck. Horwitz applies his witty and accessible style to a popular cultural, anthropological, historical, and gastronomical view of Cook's travel stops and his impact on them. He even finds parallels to his earlier "Confederates in the Attic" (see ... Read More Browse for similar items by category: 
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