reviewer
cotell
Los Angeles, CA
Going Boldly into the Sea
5 star rating

avid reader
Pros

    Despritive and storylike


JAN
3
2008

Tony Horwitz - Blue Latitudes: Boldly Going Where Captain Cook Has Gone Before — 

I finished it a bit late but I loved every minute of it. How amazing to know that much about something. To be able to recite off the top of your head all the countries Captain Cook visited, his family line, dates of events. Not to mention the wife with the patience of a saint to let him run around like that. I'm actually looking at picking up his other book "Baghdad without a Map"

The thing I couldn't get over is how much he affected the places he visited. And I can see why he wasn't considered a hero to anyone but the English. I mean with him came disease, greed, violence and the destruction of the land ~ everything that is bad in today's time.

What were once beautiful areas filled with gentle people became slums with no one ounce of good soil. But that being said, a person that didn't have his sensitivity to his power could have done a lot worse. I think he was smart enough to know how much power he had - he could have destroyed civilizations and no one would have been the wiser. And it's not like it wouldn't have happened eventually - he just caused it to happen at THAT time.

I always find it so egotistical of us to claim land in the name of a country when THERE are PEOPLE already living on that land! But that's another story.

This book was so easy to go thru even though it was Non-fiction and over 400 pages. I couldn't imagine reading a book about Captain Cooks travels without falling asleep or getting a huge headache but he wrote in such a story way that it took me a minute to realize I was actually learning something. And it helped to have Rodger's dialogue thrown in every now and then.

Make sure you check out his site when you get a chance it has maps of Cook's voyages, pictures of everyone he talked about and a bit more information. Or and before I forget, when I mentioned the book to my dad he says he saw the site in Hawaii where Cook was killed. He thought that they buried him in the hills and I had fun telling him that they used his leg bone to make an arrow and more than likely parts of him were eaten!...



I_thumb_up Tony Horwitz - Blue Latitudes: Boldly Going Where Captain Cook Has Gone Before is recommended by cotell

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