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"James Cook's three epic journeys in the eighteenth century were the last great voyages of discovery. When he embarked for the Pacific in 1768, a third of the globe remained blank. By the time he died in 1779, during a bloody clash in Hawaii, the map of the world was substantially complete.
Cook explored more of the earth's surface than anyone in history - sailing from the Arctic to the Antarctic, from Tahiti to Siberia, from Easter Island to the Great Barrier Reef - and introduced the West to an exotic world of taboo and tattoo, of cannibalism and ritual sex. Yet the impoverished farmboy, who broke the bounds of social class to become Britain's greatest navigator, remains as mysterious today as the uncharted seas he sailed more than two centuries ago.".
"In Blue Latitudes, Tony Horwitz sets off on his own voyage of discovery. Adventuring in Cook's wake, he relives the captain's journeys and explores their legacy in the farflung lands Cook opened to the West. At sea, aboard a replica of Cook's ship, he works atop a hundred-foot mast, sleeps in a narrow hammock, and recaptures the rum-and-lash world of eighteenth-century seafaring.
On land, he meets native people - Aboriginal and Aleut elders, Maori gang members, the king of Tonga - for whom Cook is alternately a heroic navigator and a villain who brought syphilis, guns, and greed to the unspoiled Pacific. Accompanied by a carousing Australian mate, he meets Miss Tahiti, visits the roughest bar in Alaska, and uncovers the secret behind the red-toothed warriors of Savage Island.
Throughout, Horwitz also searches for Cook the man: a restless prodigy who fled his peasant boyhood, and later the luxury of Georgian London, for the privation and peril of sailing off the edge of the map."--BOOK JACKET.
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Previews available in: English
Showing 6 featured editions. View all 6 editions?
Edition | Availability |
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1
Blue Latitudes: Boldly Going Where Captain Cook Has Gone Before
August 1, 2003, Picador
Paperback
in English
0312422601 9780312422608
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2
Blue Latitudes: Boldly Going Where Captain Cook Has Gone Before
March 2, 2003, Thorndike Press
Hardcover
in English
- 1 edition
0786250313 9780786250318
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3
Blue Latitudes: Boldly Going Where Captain Cook has Gone Before
October 1, 2002, HarperAudio
Audio Cassette
in English
- Abridged edition
069452350X 9780694523504
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4
Blue latitudes: boldly going where Captain Cook has gone before
2002, H. Holt
in English
0805065415 9780805065411
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5
Blue Latitudes: Boldly Going Where Captain Cook Has Gone Before
October 2, 2002, Henry Holt and Co.
Hardcover
in English
0805065415 9780805065411
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aaaa
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6
Blue Latitudes: Boldly Going Where Captain Cook Has Gone Before
2002, Henry Holt and Company
Paperback
in English
0965047393 9780965047395
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Book Details
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"When I was thirteen, my parents bought a used sailboat, a ten-foot wooden dory that I christened Wet Dream."
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- Created April 29, 2008
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August 6, 2010 | Edited by IdentifierBot | added LibraryThing ID |
April 24, 2010 | Edited by Open Library Bot | Fixed duplicate goodreads IDs. |
April 16, 2010 | Edited by bgimpertBot | Added goodreads ID. |
April 14, 2010 | Edited by Open Library Bot | Linked existing covers to the edition. |
April 29, 2008 | Created by an anonymous user | Imported from amazon.com record |