Known twentieth century books
Eighteenth century books
below
Medicine Under Sail Friedenberg, Zachary B. 2002
Blue Latitudes: boldly going where Captain Cook has gone before Horwitz, Tony. 2002
The Ship: Retracing Cook's Endeavour Voyage Baker, Simon. 2002
Mile End Old Town 1740-1780 Morris, Derek. 2002
Captain Cook in the Pacific Rigby, Nigel and van der Merwe, Peter. 2002
Walking in Captain Cook's Footsteps Beadle, J. Brian. 2003
The Encyclopaedia of Exploration to 1800 Howgego, John. 2002
Concerning Cook Stamp, Cordelia. 2003
The Trial of The Cannibal Dog: Captain Cook in the South Seas Salmond, Anne. 2003
By Alan Whitworth, published by Culva House Publications in 2002 (ISBN 1 871150 19 1).
A 50-page booklet by Alan Whitworth, a local historian who lives near Whitby, UK. It was produced as a celebration of the two visits by the Australian Endeavour replica in 1997 and 2002.
The frontispiece is a colour photograph of the Cook statue on the West Cliff, Whitby taken some time ago – it doesn't show the current paving representing the compass points but the previous low fence encompassing a small garden.
Curiously for a local author, the story breezes through Cook's early life, covering his first 18 years in the first paragraph and his stay at Whitby in the second. Several pages are devoted, however, to Cook's early years in the Navy (only later was it called the Royal Navy). It is a pity that Cook's second ship, the Solebay is mis-spelt as the Solebury, and that he is described "as surveyor aboard the Antelope", implying he was in command when he was just a passenger on his way to take charge of the Tweed. These ships so rarely get a mention in any piece on Cook.
Whitworth excels at describing the Earl of Pembroke and its transformation into the Endeavour. He discusses its design, the terms bark and cat, which are so frequently used by us but so often misunderstood, the meaning of ship-rigged and snow. Even the development of the ship-building industry on the North-East coast, taking over from those in Suffolk (where I live), is covered. The ship was modified twice at Deptford on the river Thames, and the reasons and effects on the ship and its "94 persons including Officers Seamen Gentlemen and their servants" explained step by step.
Several pages are given to explaining the stores taken on board. For example, "The vessel also carried large oars, called sweeps, which were used on 16 August 10 to guide the Endeavour through an opening in a reef off New Zealand into the calmer waters beyond".
The voyage of the Endeavour is dealt with in one paragraph, and the author moves on to the Australian replica, which gets three pages, starting with the concept in 1970 and the attempts from 1981 to get it built in Whitby.
The mini-replica recently built at Whitby1 is mentioned, but there is surprisingly nothing about the replicas at Stockton2 and Stondon3. Instead there is a description of the Cook statue at Whitby and the monument on Easyby Moor near Great Ayton.
Given the booklet's title, it is a curious mix of expected information (such as an appendix of the Endeavour's crew), interesting information (an appendix of Cook's service in Whitby ships from the muster rolls) and the irrelevant (e.g. an appendix about the Coat of Arms granted to him posthumously).
Notes
1. See Cook's Log, page 194 vol. 25, no. 2 (2002)
2. See page 1342, vol. 19, no 4 (1996)
3. See page 1530, vol. 21, no 3 (1998)
Reviewer: Ian Boreham
Originally published in Cook's Log, page 2000, volume 25, number 4 (2002).
By Zachary B. Friedenberg, published by the Naval Institute Press, Annapolis, USA in 2002 (ISBN 1-86176-212-7). On all three Voyages, Cook had on board medical men called Surgeons: William Monkhouse, James Patton and William Anderson. I had wondered why they were surgeons and not just doctors, but did not find the answer until I read this book.
This book tracks the deployment of medical people on (mainly) European and American ships and the development of their knowledge and treatment of "the injured and the sick". Friedenberg points out that in ancient and medieval times there were no medical men aboard ships during short trips unless they were at war, when their role was to treat the wounded.
"By the eleventh century, barber-surgeons had taken over the task of surgery in the Mediterranean navies and… accompanied ships trading with England, and the practice of appointing barber-surgeons to ships spread to English ships." In 1540 the Company of Barber-Surgeons was formed and it examined and appointed surgeons to the Navy until 1745 when the College of Surgeons took over the role. A surgeon "held a warrant, was not even a commissioned officer… If the surgeon noted the outbreak of cases of scurvy and requested a stopover on an island to gather fresh food supplies, or if the anchorage was in an unhealthy part of the harbor and a change of anchorage indicated, he could be overruled by the captain." In addition the surgeon "had to provide medicines and procure instruments, paying for these out of his own pocket."
Friedenberg has an easy style of writing. He comprehensively de-scribes the way the various diseases were recognised and dis-tinguished without, in the process, losing the reader. He makes interesting the complex way the "precise causative agents of these diseases" was recog-nised, by those who sailed and those who pontificated from the land.
"The cause of all disease in the sixteenth to nineteenth centuries was thought to be toxic air rising from the ground in a miasmic cloud, or an effluvia of the breath of sick individuals, which contaminated the air and enveloped healthy individuals and sickened them. If large numbers of people congregated, someone in the crowd was responsible for spreading disease to others. In the absence of any suspicion of a bacterium or virus, the toxic air theory provided a reasonable explanation for contagion; the stink of putrefaction and filth contaminated the air and sickened people… To overcome these odors, ships were fumigated. Burning a tarred piece of rope, tobacco or gunpowder was used to overcome the evil odors, as well as hot vinegar, substituting one odor for another."
William Anderson on the Third Voyage often wrote in his journal entries like "Clean'd and smoak'd below".
The whole of the fourth chapter is devoted to scurvy which, says Friedenberg, "is almost totally confined to the human race and the primates, although guinea pigs also can become scorbutic." He describes its symptoms, the search over several hundred years for a cause, the partial successes and the final understanding. Lord Anson set sail in 1740 with a fleet that arrived at Brazil with "one-fifth of the crew so weakened by scurvy that they had to be carried ashore." Captain Hugh Palliser's experiments aboard HMS Sheerness are described, in which "he provided extra fresh provisions instead of salt port". Upon arrival at the Cape of Good Hope "not a man was ill with scurvy", an experience he used "to advise his friend, Captain Cook". Experiments continued, and in 1794 the men on HMS Suffolk received "two-thirds of an ounce of lemon juice mixed with grog and two ounces of sugar… it was necessary to add the lemon juice to the grog where it was certain to be drunk". When it arrived at Madras, India after 23 weeks there were no cases of scurvy.
In between times, James Lind and James Cook had been working hard. To many members of the CCS their stories are well known, and this book does them both justice. For Cook it brings together the salient parts of his journals and commands so one can see across all three voyages to study the effect of this one man's principles and guidance. "because fats and oils were thought to encourage scurvy, Cook ordered that all meat be heated to remove them; the resulting cooking grease was skimmed off and used to lubricate the blocks and riggings." Cook misunderstood which of his actions actually prevented scurvy so that his paper to the Royal Society in London on 17 March 1776 gave the wrong explanation.
Later chapters reflect on beriberi and typhus, death and disease in the slave trade, impressment and punishment, which I found just as interesting. William Bligh's epic voyage is given good coverage in the "shipwrecks and survivors" chapter and his maturing under Cook duly recognised. Whilst the subject might not appeal, at first, to everyone, Friedberg, an orthopaedic surgeon ensures that, once started, the read remains interesting and intriguing.
Reviewer: Ian Boreham
Originally published in Cook's Log, page 2001, volume 25, number 4 (2002).
US cover
Australia cover
UK cover
By Tony Horwitz, published in 2002.
Three different dust-jackets and two different titles (but only one sub-title) with only one set of words within this 480 page book by CCS member Tony Horwitz published in 2002 in the USA, Australia and UK.
Blue Latitudes: boldly going where Captain Cook has gone before, ISBN 0805065415, Henry Holt and Co, USA.
Into the Blue: boldly going where Captain Cook has gone before, ISBN 1865088994, Allen and Unwin, Australia.
Into the Blue: boldly going where Captain Cook has gone before, ISBN 0747560471, Bloomsbury, UK.
The variety is appropriate as the book is like no other one on Captain Cook. It's a travelogue really, not a biography. It's a journey to many parts of the world where Cook went, with a re-telling of his life that is not so much chronological as geographical.
Horwitz wondered what places associated with Cook, like Bora-Bora, the Bering Sea, the Great Barrier Reef, Tonga, Kealakekua Bay "were like today, if any trace of Cook's boot prints remained" and how the Pacific peoples' "descendants remember Cook now". He set off, sometimes alone, most often with a friend, and discovered some fascinating people. And it is these people, their lives today, their reactions to Horwitz' questions and the colourful picture he paints of them which makes this book such an excellent read. It isn't an adventure story that makes you want to turn over the page to discover what happened next, but a picture of the human world with such wonder-ful characters that one becomes curious to know who he meets next and what he will write about them. And all the time Horwitz relates them to Cook, or is it the other way round?
"In Cook's day, Tahiti's bountiful landscape fed tens of thousands of people, as well as the hundred hungry sailors aboard the Endeavour. Now, the equation was reversed: a tiny fraction of Tahitians lived on the land, and roughly 85 percent of their foodstuffs were imported from Europe." He finds the Tahitians still use "words influenced by English… A common greeting, yoana, was believed to have derived from the 'your honor'."
After Tahiti, and some of the other Society Islands, Horwitz visits Gisborne in New Zealand, Botany Bay and Cooktown in Australia (joining in a re-enactment of Cook's Landing), Tonga, North Yorkshire and London in the UK, Alaska (not Nootka Sound) and Hawaii. At one point he realises that "I'd gone where Cook went, but I couldn't share his experience. The problem wasn't simply that I traveled by jet, rather than by wooden ship. It was also that I carried an image of every place I went before I got there."
So he decides to visit Niue, called Savage Island by Cook. "Traveling virtually blind to a land I hadn't known existed, and whose name I couldn't even pronounce, seemed as close as I could get to the freshness of discovery I so envied in Cook's voyages." It's as well Horwitz never collected stamps, or he might have been aware of the place through them. It is on this island that he describes how deeply his research into Cook's sole had affected him. "I woke the next morning from a disturbing dream in which I'd killed Beaglehole with a cannonball." J.C. Beaglehole's books on Cook are Horwitz' constant, silent travelling companions and they are listed in the bibliography that stretches to seven pages and covers books relevant to Cook's journey as well as to a modern traveller's.
The 18-page index is very detailed and has two items that I must quote:
Thornton, Clifford, 319-24, 378-79, 383-86, 388, 394, 402, 412-418, 421-23, 430, 439-42
Horwitz met several members of the CCS during his journeys, some of whom appear in the book. Our President, Cliff Thornton becomes his guide to London and joins him in Hawaii to commemorate Cook's death. Horwitz captures some of Thornton's great thoughts on Cook, such as, "The best you can do is catch an echo of the man. You can almost never reach out and touch him."
Not everything is to the liking of Horwitz, who notes "In Alaska, Cook, for the first time, met natives in the early throes of the upheaval wrought by sustained European contact. The picture he and his men came away with proved a melancholy preview of what lay in store for the societies Cook himself had opened to the West." However, "For all that had changed Polynesia still offered glimpses of the pleasing simplicity that appealed to Cook and his men."
This book is number three in my list of "essential books for a Cook enthusiast" after Beaglehole's biography and Robson's maps. And in his "Notes on Sources" Horwitz scans the many books published about Cook picking out the other ones that were useful to him and, I believe, to many of us.
Reviewer: Ian Boreham
Originally published in Cook's Log, page 2002, volume 25, number 4 (2002).
By Simon Baker, published by BBC Worldwide Ltd in 2002 (ISBN 0 563 53463 X).
This book was published to accompany the TV series The Ship, in which volunteers and specialists sailed with 16 permanent crew on the Endeavour replica in an "attempt to come closer to the past [and] shed new light on it and to re-evaluate Cook and his legacy."
The book describes how Cook's First Voyage round the World was planned and then describes in detail the part between Cairns and Jakarta, contrasting the 1770s experience with that of 2001. The result is an extensive description of the preparations for, and scientific results of, the original voyage, richly illustrated with excellent reproductions of relevant contemporary paintings, drawings and charts.
Whilst the passages about the original voyage are in the normal narrative format and easy to follow, those of the modern version are given by extracts from the journals of the 21st century people, making for a disjointed approach. As the extracts were headed by only the first name of the writer I got confused as to whether the Chris being quoted was Chris Blake, the captain of the replica or Chris Terrill, the producer of the TV series.
Having enjoyed the TV series which concentrated on the modern voyage, putting the activities and discoveries into the context of Cook's voyage, it was a surprise to find this book covering so much of the original Endeavour voyage with a poor reflection of what took place and was learned on the Endeavour replica.
Reviewer: Ian Boreham
Originally published in Cook's Log, page 2003, volume 25, number 4 (2002).
By Derek Morris, published by The East London History Society in 2002 (ISBN 0 9506258 3 3).
In 2000, Derek Morris treated fellow CCS members to an insight into the Mile End Old Town that Captain Cook knew [See Cook's Log pages 1750 and 1776, vol. 23, nos. 3 and 4 (2000)]. His latest publication is a 124 pp A4 softback that provides readers with the whole gamut of mid 18th century life in this small community.
The book covers those transitional years when Mile End Old Town was still showing its rural roots but was coming increasingly under the influence of London and the burgeoning maritime trade of the adjacent parish of Wapping. Chapters cover the social and commercial history of the area, from the rural economy through some of the local crafts, to the merchants and seamen who elected to live in this suburban hamlet.
I was amazed to read the breadth and the depth of history that exists for this small geographical area, and for such a short span of time. The work is essential for anybody with an interest in Mile End Old Town, but it offers far more than that, as it demonstrates the many specialist archives from which Derek has taken threads to create his historical tapestry. As such it will be a useful reference book for local historians researching the East End of London.
Cook enthusiasts will not be disappointed in the book, as the Captain and his family, not to mention Dr Solander are woven into different chapters of the book.
The author has a personal interest in Mile End Old Town having traced his ancestral roots to that hamlet as far back as 1746. He has shown that the area is rich in local history and has already produced many specialist articles on different aspects of history. His latest work is a useful summation of his extensive research.
The book is available from the author at 21 Haddon Court, Shakespeare Road, Harpenden, AL5 5NB, England, at a cost of £9.60 plus postage and packing. P&P is £2.00 in the UK and £5.00 overseas. Please make cheques, etc., payable to "East London History Society".
Reviewer: Cliff Thornton
Originally published in Cook's Log, page 19, volume 26, number 1 (2003).
By Nigel Rigby and Peter van der Merwe, published by the National Maritime Museum, Greenwich in 2002 (ISBN 0-948065-43-5).
On the 28th June 2002 a new exhibition opened at the National Maritime Museum, Greenwich, UK, entitled "Oceans of Discovery". Running until the 27th April 2003, it "illustrates the fascinating story of human endeavour to explore and understand the world and its oceans" from early beginnings to date. Part of the exhibition "examines the progress during the age of Enlightenment (about 1700 – 1850) when a belief in the processes of scientific enquiry first came to the fore."
Captain Cook in the Pacific appears in the wake of this exhibition, although it has limited scope and is more a summary than an in-depth examination. However, as such it is a good starting point, highlighting the main aspects of the voyages and the main characters. It has a small but interesting bibliography and chronologies for the three voyages, a useful tool for the Cook beginner such as myself. This book outlines Cook's life and voyages in the context of his times, with many illustrations from the Museum's own collection, showing how Cook "deserves to be seen as the first modern scientific explorer of the oceans".
A fine introduction by Glyn Williams, setting the scene by describing earlier voyages into the Pacific, leads you into two chapters describing Cook's three voyages. The next four chapters deal with the scientific and artistic aspects, looking in turn at how vessels were adapted for Pacific exploration, "Experimental Gentlemen" – science and empire in the Pacific, art and artists on Cook's voyages and Captain Cook and Pacific peoples, in particular the Maoris and Tahitians.
This book stands out for me as different to many I have come across as it pays less attention to the geographical impact the voyages had, instead concentrating more on the scientific and artistic impacts. It also focuses more on other characters who sailed with Cook rather than the man himself (though naturally he features from time to time!) This book is aimed at people like me who, despite the fact I have grown up with Cook always in the house, actually know very little about the man or the voyages. I found it very readable, although the chapter on art and artists lost me a little when it started discussing methods and techniques. The book is well illustrated, with almost half of the space being devoted to the pictures and their explanations. The only criticism I have is on the chapter concerning art as the pictures discussed often appear elsewhere in the book (although page numbers are given) and so, when reading this section, much of my time was spent flicking through the book to find the right illustration.
Highly Recommended
Reviewer: Ruth Boreham
Originally published in Cook's Log, page 20, volume 26, number 1 (2003).
By J. Brian Beadle, published by Trailblazer Publishing, Yorkshire, UK in 2003 (ISBN 1899004467).
A 24-page booklet covering eight walks around the Cleveland Coast Countryside in the footsteps of the Great Explorer.
The walks vary in length from 1½ to 9½ miles, with an option for one of them of expanding it to 20 miles. There is a town walk (around Whitby), two village walks (around Great Ayton and Staithes) and marvellous treks to the Cook monument on Easby Moor and nearby Roseberry Topping, as well as a high moor walk with grand views.
The author cannot guarantee the weather, but he does say "if you can take a walk in winter with a sprinkling of snow on the ground, I'm sure you will be impressed!"
For each walk there is a rough map, a starting point (with the word START on all bar one map), a grid reference so you can find the location on the maps produced by the Ordnance Survey, a guide to parking, refreshments, public toilets as well as an estimated duration for the walk. The route descriptions vary from the brief (such as for part of the Cleveland Way which "has been waymarked with either tall posts or small waymark arrows") to the detailed. The descriptions include comments about the path, such as: "Yes, it is steep! It is a hard, long climb to the top but well worth it if you survive!"
Most Cook features are noted along the way, but some are missing: Pannet Park Museum in Whitby has an important Cook collection, Hinderwell Churchyard contains the Sanderson family vault [see Cook's Log, page 1494, vol. 21, no. 2 (1998)]. I would have liked to know more about the Cook features that are passed, such as when was the statue at Whitby erected and who paid for. We are given this information about the monument on Easby Moor - a Whitby banker in 1827.
The booklet opens with "Just a Few Words", two pages describing Cook's association with the area and his subsequent life. There are useful illustrations throughout, though the captions are poor and ALL IN CAPITAL LETTERS that obtrude. I spotted only two factual errors. Cook didn't go to Tasmania on the First Voyage and his parents are not buried at Great Ayton – his mother is but not his father.
The booklet is great value at £1.95, and is worth having whether you intend exploring on foot or, like me, do so from the comfort of your armchair.
Reviewer: Ian Boreham
Originally published in Cook's Log, page 14, volume 26, number 2 (2003).
By John Howgego, published by Hordern House, Sydney, Australia in 2002.
At nearly 1200, A4 sized pages this is an impressive volume.
At first, I was a little disappointed at first to find that there were no maps or illustrations. However this is more than offset by the amount of detailed information. Each expedition is dealt with as an individual item. The detail includes other relevant members of the expedition, with cross references where applicable. Even where the explorer has been on another expedition in a minor capacity, this is covered as an individual voyage with a cross reference to the expedition leader for more information.
The detail is quite exceptional. In the few items I have read in detail, most of the alternative spellings for names and places are given. The places discovered or visited give the dates of arrival and departure. Also, mention is made of information from their references which has been proved to be either dubious or incorrect.
At the end of each article, a bibliography is given. This enables you to go straight to the full information and also the references should be considered to be the definitive sources.
With separate indexes for people and ships, it is quite easy to look up unusual names. There are several Spanish explorers with names I thought were their first name and surname, only to find it is their surname!
The book is quite expensive at A$295.00 but to someone who is seriously interested in exploration in general it is an essential reference.
Reviewer: Richard Hindle
Visit the website dedicted to this book at www.explorersencyclopedia.com
Originally published in Cook's Log, page 6, volume 26, number 3 (2003).
By Cordelia Stamp, published by Caedmon of Whitby, 128 Upgang Lane, Whitby, North Yorkshire YO21 3JJ, UK in 2003 (ISBN 0 905355 58 X).
A delightful 24 page booklet from an author who has come up with yet another good idea.
Cordelia Stamp is to be congratulated on producing a booklet that gathers together the known portraits of Captain Cook, plus some alleged ones of him. Thus we have the portrait by Nathaniel Dance, the two by John Webber, the one discovered in Ireland by William Hodges (though Cordelia thinks not) and the portrait in the Royal Geographical Society's headquarters alleged to be of Cook [See Cook's Log, page 1858, vol. 24, no. 3 (2000)].
Also featured are portraits of the main artists who sailed with Cook: Sydney Parkinson, William Hodges and John Webber, along with descriptions of their lives and comments on their work. Others appearing include Joseph Banks, the Forsters and Charles Clerke.
It is a pity that the illustrations are in black-and-white but colour would have made the enterprise expensive. It is a snip at £2.95 plus postage from the publishers.
Reviewer: Ian Boreham
Originally published in Cook's Log, page 7, volume 26, number 3 (2003).
By Anne Salmond, published by Allen Lane, London, UK in 2003 (ISBN 0-713-99661-7).
A biography of Cook that differs from its predecessors. It focuses on how the Cook and the other Euro-peans were viewed by the natives of the South Seas rather than the usual view of how the explorers viewed the inhabitants.
Professor Salmond draws on her academic knowledge and experience as an anthropologist and historian to produce a distinctly different book that adds to our knowledge of the events that are so familiar to us. She does so by bringing to the fore the influence and effect of the Polynesians who journeyed with Cook: Tupaia on the first Voyage, Hitihiti on the Second and Omai on the Third.
Dame Salmond sets the scene for us by not only describing the social background of Georgian England (such as "naval officers were among the top 6 per cent of income earners" and the causes of "the great merchant seamen's strike" of May 1768) but also that of Polynesia and the Society Islands, in particular. She draws on the increasing knowledge of Polynesian traditions and beliefs to explain how Cook's arrival and interaction with the islanders were viewed by them, avoiding North America where "Cook mentioned no individuals by name; and except at Nootka Sound… forged no friendships with local leaders".
We learn the effects on the sailors of coming under Polynesian influence "not surprisingly, since some of them had spent more time in the Pacific than anywhere else in recent years, forming close relationships with Polynesian friends… They had learned about the power of mana, how to resent an insult, and how to express that resentment." Time and again Salmond describes the way even simple actions were misunderstood. Describing the arrival of Wallis in the Dolphin, we are told "On the beaches people beckoned to the sailors, who mistook this for an invitation to come ashore, although in Tahiti this was a gesture of dismissal." When Cook arrived in the Endeavour at New Zealand there were "misunderstandings about reciprocity. In Maori gift exchange, return gifts were often delayed in counterpoint of chiefly generosity. No doubt Tupaia tried to mske these matters clear, but when the sailors simply pointed at things in the canoes, expecting people to hand them over at once, Maori were confused or resentful. Sometimes they were defiant, and taunted the strangers for failing to follow the appropriate rituals."
These explanations of how events were viewed by both sides makes the book a long one at 432 pages of narrative plus 100 pages of notes, appendices, etc. At times the story seems repetitious: another island, another greeting, another misunderstanding. But it is a useful reminder of how the events of a decade really did seem. In a sense, all of the explanations lead up to the events in Hawaii, which Salmond describes in a masterly way, summarising the journals of the officers and sailors aboard, the stories given to following European sailors and missionaries as well as the recent academic discussions of Marshall Sahlins, Gananath Obeyesekere and others. In Salmond's view most Hawaiians "identified Cook with their ancestor Lono-I-ka-Makahiki, a former sacred high chief of Hawai'I, returning from his visit to the far-off land of Kahiki."
However, by 1779 "many of his men thought that Cook cared far too much for the islanders. As Lieutenant Williamson noted, there was a long-standing difference of opinion between Cook and many of his officers about how 'Indians' ought to be handled". Salmond concludes that "The dynamics on board his ships led to Cook's death, as much as the situation in Hawai'i. It was a tragic event of epic proportions, and a purely local explanation will not serve, for all that it might seem pretty… In many ways it was a classic case of the 'collapse of command', when a leader's authority is undermined over time by severe stress and undue familiarity."
Salmond uses the trial and killing of a dog by sailors in New Zealand as an example of how their regard for the islanders differed so much from Cook's.. But its use as the title for the book does not work for me. I would have preferred: Captain Cook in the South Seas; as seen by the islanders he encountered.
Reviewer: Ian Boreham
Originally published in Cook's Log, page 7, volume 26, number 3 (2003).