BOOK REVIEW: The Wide Wide Sea by Hampton Sides

My history/historical fiction book club is meeting this weekend. Our book is The Wide Wide Sea: Imperial Ambition, First Contact and the Fateful Final Voyage of Captain James Cook by Hampton Sides. I wasn’t particularly excited by the choice, never having had an interest in Cook’s explorations, but I was encouraged by the great reviews.

And the great reviews are valid. This is a very readable account of Cook’s last voyage, drawing on diaries, published accounts, and oral histories passed down through generations. Cook was lionized in his own time, and is often vilified in ours, because of the short and long-term consequences of his voyages. This book is a balanced account that brings out Cook’s impressive skills and unusual methods, while not shying away from the devastating impact of first contact and colonialism. The author also muses over Cook’s seeming change in personality in this, his final voyage, and how that might have contributed to his violent end. 

In addition, the book tells the story of Mai, a Tahitian man who had been brought to England, immersed in the British culture, and then taken home. His story is tragically symbolic of the psychological confusion resulting from trying to live in or meld the cultures of two very different worlds.

For me, one of the more rewarding aspects of the book is the geography lesson underpinning the narrative. My knowledge of geography is pretty pathetic, but in following the map of Cook’s voyage, I had to picture the route (the map helps), and I finished the book with a more comprehensive image of the globe.

Whether you are interested in Captain Cook or not, this is a compelling book. Highly recommended.