Publisher's Synopsis
Captain Cook's voyage into the uncharted South Pacific was one of the greatest scientific adventures of all time, provided the incentive for the settlement of Australia and New Zealand, and coincided with the birth of sciences including zoology, ethnology and botany, as well as dramatic advances in navigation and astronomy. It was also part of an ongoing power play between three empires: British, French and Spanish. This text brings all these threads together to explore the adventure and, in some cases, overturn familiar ideas of Lt James Cook RN. The tradesman navigator is revealed as a passionate visionary whose impact on those with whom he worked was profound.
