Captain Cook: Voyager Between Worlds - Hardcover

Gascoigne, John

Hardcover

ISBN 10: 1847250025 ISBN 13: 9781847250025

Publisher: Bloomsbury Academic, 2007

Synopsis

Captain James Cook was a supreme navigator and explorer, but in many ways was also a representative of English attitudes in the eighteenth century. In his voyages he came across peoples with hugely different systems of thought, belief and culture.
Born in North Yorkshire in 1728, entered the world of the peoples of the South Pacific the gulf between the two cultures was not nearly as vast as it was a century later, when ships made of metal and powered by steam were able to expand and enforce European Empires. In their different ways both the British and the peoples of the Pacific had to battle the seas and its moods with timber vessels pwered by sail and human muscle.
John Gascoigne focuses on what happened when the two systems met, and how each side interpreted the other in terms of their own beliefs and experiences.

About this title

About the Author:

Professor John Gascoigne was educated at the universities of Sydney, Princeton and Cambridge. He has taught in Papua New Guinea and since 1980 has been a member of the School of History, University of New South Wales. He is a Fellow of the Australian Academy of the Humanities. His five previous books and other publications have dealt with the impact of the Scientific Revolution and the Enlightenment and include a two-volume study of Joseph Banks and his world. His most recent work is The Enlightenment and the Origins of European Australia (Cambridge, 2002). Shortlisted for the 2008 NSW Premier's History Prize.

Review:

"His perceptiveanalysis gives a new depth of understanding... highly recommended for history andanthropology collections in academic and large public libraries."- ElizabethSalt, Library Journal, June 1, 2007,Vol. 132 No. 10 (Library Journal)

"Using the life ofCapt. James Cook as a framework, Gascoigne does as exhaustive comparison of 18th-centuryBritain with lands of the Pacific...Gascoigne's book is a historical treatiserather than a biography. Still, theauthor researched and documented his work, extensively. Pages of endnotes follow the text, which iswell-written, meticulous and fascinating." —Charleston Post and Courier Net

"Just when you thought that you had read all the different ways of recounting Cook's vogages of discovery, along comes John Gascoigne with a new approach ... the author is a good storyteller, and is able to link together topics that at first sight apepar quite disparate ... each of the thematic chapters is an unpredictable pot-pourri that makes for an interesting read."Cliff Thornton, Cook's Log (Cliff Thornton, Cook's Log)

"This is not so much a book about Cook as it is about his negotiation of the southern Pacific way of thinking and way of life...Illustrations and notes add a fascinating, well-written book. Summing Up: Recommended. All levels/libraries." —G. J. Martin, CHOICE, April 2008, Vol. 45, No. 8 (G.J. Martin)

"Gascoigne provides vivid examples of how the process of cultural conflict and accommodation worked in the Pacific in the mid-to late eighteenth century." —Brian Refford, Journal of British Studies, Vol. 47, July 2008 (Brain Refford)

"John Gascoigne paints a detailed and clear picture of the time and place {of Cook's}, and by extension provedes a keyhole onto Cook. It is the Interaction between Cook's worlds, 'Old' and 'New' that is the central theme in this authoritative study." - The Age, Melbourne (The Age)

'An absorbing and provocative book.'
- The Press, January 2008 (Christopher Moore)

'Yet ... academically rigorous .. also very readable. I was constantly arrested by aspects of the story which are fresh and insightful.[John Gascoigne] has given us history aqs it should be written'- Canberra Times (Robert Willson)

''thoughtful and original'- Journal of Imperial and Commonwealth History, 34 (2007) (Glyndwr Williams)

'meticulously mapped with an attention to detail that Cook would have admired.'- Australian, December 2007 (Marele Day)

About this edition

• Publisher: Bloomsbury Academic
• Publication date: 2007
• ISBN 10: 1847250025
• ISBN 13: 9781847250025
• Binding: Hardcover
• Edition number: 1
• Number of pages: 304