Captain Cook: Master of the Seas

by Frank McLynn

The age of discovery was at its peak in the eighteenth century, with heroic adventurers charting the furthest reaches of the globe. Foremost among these explorers was navigator and cartographer Captain James Cook of the British Royal Navy.

Recent writers have viewed Cook largely through the lens of colonial exploitation, regarding him as a villain and overlooking an important aspect of his identity: his nautical skills. In this authentic, engrossing biography, Frank McLynn reveals Cook's place in history as a brave and brilliant seaman. He shows how the Captain's life was one of struggle--with himself, with institutions, with the environment, with the desire to be remembered--and also one of great success.

In Captain Cook, McLynn re-creates the voyages that took the famous navigator from his native England to the outer reaches of the Pacific Ocean. Ultimately, Cook, who began his career as a deckhand, transcended his humble beginnings and triumphed through good fortune, courage, and talent. Although Cook died in a senseless, avoidable conflict with the people of Hawaii, McLynn illustrates that to the men with whom he served, Cook was master of the seas and nothing less than a titan.

Genres: History, Biography, Nonfiction, Travel, British Literature, Biography Memoir, Historical

490 pages, Hardcover

First published April 15, 2011

About the author

Frank McLynn is an English author, biographer, historian and journalist. He is noted for critically acclaimed biographies of Napoleon Bonaparte, Robert Louis Stevenson, Carl Jung, Richard Francis Burton and Henry Morton Stanley.

McLynn was educated at Wadham College, Oxford and the University of London. He was Alistair Horne Research Fellow at St Antony's College, Oxford (1987–88) and was visiting professor in the Department of Literature at the University of Strathclyde (1996–2001) and professorial fellow at Goldsmiths College London (2000 - 2002) before becoming a full-time writer.

Reviews

[David Tynes · Rating 4 out of 5]

A tremendous amount of detail on Cook's life. Some of the most fascinating is his behavior and thoughts around Polynesian people that he visited on many occasions in the South Pacific and Hawaii.

[Dave Appleby · Rating 3 out of 5]

A hugely detailed (exhaustingly so) biography of the explorer James Cook. While I was interested in his early life (he was late going to sea and even then he worked for a long time in the merchant marine and his transfer from mate to able-seaman in the navy was a surprising career move) and the details of how he learned his trade as a surveyor during the Canadian campaign of the Seven Years War, I had very little interest in the minute details of Cook's day by day adventures in Tahiti or Tonga or even Hawaii; at this stage less would have meant more.

It was, however, to McLynn's credit that he sees Cook as a flawed human being who represented a corrupt and flawed Royal Navy with latent imperialist and colonialist intentions and fundamentally racist attitudes. Cook rarely comes out of an encounter with Polynesians and Maoris, Australian aboriginals and Melanesians, Inuit and Siberians etc; to his utter failure to understand the opposing culture he added autocratic decision making, flogging, maiming and even shooting 'natives' without compunction; I was only surprised that it took so long for an angry 'native' mob to murder him. McLynn repeatedly compares Cook with HM Stanley who, in McLynn's own (earlier) biography, is depicted as a monster). But McLynn doesn't do hagiography, describing James Wolfe, the British general who, by taking Quebec, turned Canada from French to English, as "habitually addicted to war crimes and even genocide ... deeply unpleasant ... by any standards a war criminal." (Ch 2). He also debunks the credentials of Alexander Dalrymple who seemed to receive rather kinder treatment at the hands of his descendant William Dalrymple in his history of the East India Company, The Anarchy.

But Cook's achievements are immense. A brilliant cartographer, he mapped New Zealand and the eastern coast of Australia, he saw icebergs and almost the coast of Antarctica, he 'discovered' (to Europeans) Hawaii, he mapped the Oregon and Alaskan coast. The book alternates between descriptions of the sexual freedoms enjoyed by his sailors (but not Cook) in Tahiti and Tonga and, to a lesser extent, Hawaii, where they introduced syphilis, and the dramatic battles with the sea.

So there's plenty of incident. But the sentences are long and the paragraphs are, at times, immense. I have always understood that a paragraph is organised around a single theme but McLynn sees them as department stores of ideas. I was repeatedly fatigued while reading this book.

The sort of biography that is brilliant for the scholar but over-detailed and heavy-going for the general reader.

[Ian K · Rating 4 out of 5]

It was on my list to read a biography on Captain James Cook for some time and although this wasn’t the one recommended to me, it was available at my local library. So I decided to give it a go, heartened by positive reviews on Goodreads.
Frank McLynn certainly provides a very well researched and detailed account of Captain Cook’s life and achievements from his birth through to his death in the Hawaiian islands. While I found the book a mostly compelling read, there were parts where it was quite repetitious and tedious. This was towards the end his second voyage and for the parts in the third voyage when dealing with the Tahitians and Hawaiians. However, I understand that McLynn was merely reflecting actual events and his interpretation of them as they happened. The other thing I found frustrating was McLynn’s propensity to use totally unfamiliar words, particularly adjectives, that I had never heard before and which were totally unnecessary. He also began to delve into intricate detail to support his arguments when explaining his interpretation of actions and events. As he is a professional historian, I guess it is in McLynn’s nature to do this but I began to get the feeling that McLynn was trying to prove he and his biography of Cook to be more superior than the many others out there. Thus I began to feel the book was more about McLynn’s talents and less about Cook. Nonetheless, as I said, I found the book mostly compelling and so have rated it accordingly.

[Jeane · Rating 3 out of 5]

I am pretty sure that when I bought this book many years ago in a lovely second hand book shop, I did because I was thinking about captain Hook. Very quickly after starting to read, I started to wonder and realized that it wasn't about captain Hook but Cook.
Having not any particular interest in captain Cook, I have to admit that the book was written very well. I didn't get bored by it and in some way even found it enjoyable reading.
I did take a break from it to read something else which made want to read on and on, which I didn't have with Captain Cook. But still it wasn't a bad read.

[Matt · Rating 4 out of 5]

I had no idea that Captain Cook was the first man to sail into the Antarctic Circle. While very informative, and surprisingly detailed, the book has the feeling of a graduate thesis at times, due to the constant references to other author's works. The constant references also lend an aura of authenticity to the book as well, since he frequently quotes Captain Cook's as well as other officer's journals that were maintained during the 3 major voyages.

[Olgalijo · Rating 4 out of 5]

This seems to me to be very well researched, and it tries to look at the character of Captain Cook from all points of view, neither depicting him as the great discoverer nor as a monster, but as a person with virtues and failings. I found it somewhat overwritten though, and there were quite a number of typos.

[David Cooper · Rating 4 out of 5]

This book covers Cook's early life and of course, his three voyages to the Pacific. Well researched story with contemporary sources. It gave me a real feel for the ocean voyages themselves and the seas they dealt with. Told of all the different characters involved and the politics behind it all. It gave me a good idea of the times and the man.

[Steve Courson · Rating 3 out of 5]

Should be titled “Captain Cook and Polynesian Geo-politics” as this is what half the book is about. After reading Hampton Sides’ “The Wide Wide Sea” about Cook’s 3rd voyage, I was spoiled and wanted more of the same for the first and second. This book didn’t come close. I can’t actually believe someone would take the time to render this much detail about the minutiae of detail. Yes, I meant what I just wrote about the detail. I skipped over large swathes of the voyages and by the end I wished I had stayed on land.

[Samuel Gaeth · Rating 2 out of 5]

This book was really the history of encounters between Polynesians and Captain Cook. A lot of the book was spent describing the geo-politics of Polynesia. The best parts were the overviews of his sailing these extreme trips and how his sailors faired. The most interesting parts were glossed over, like a diver who had to free an anchor in the arctic, or when sailers brought a bunch of monkeys on the boat and then killed them all. Not a great read.

[Jim · Rating 4 out of 5]

What this book makes clear, and which Jason Mamoa's Chief of War reinforces, is that English explorers had no chance of understanding the incredibly sophisticated relationships between the ruling classes of the islands of the Pacific. Each island presented a complex puzzle that, more often than not, Cook not only failed to untangle but invariably worsened. Master of the Seas? No doubt. But a poor leader and a worse ambassador.

[Kenneth Thomas · Rating 4 out of 5]

I enjoyed this book. It is a short read but gives me some insight to one of the great explorers of this world we lived in. Coming from humble beginnings and working to better himself within a "class" system, he worked his way up to becoming a Captain of his own ship and leading expeditions of men. He made maps that are still relevant to this day and it is definitely a book worthy of reading.

[Josh Ayto · Rating 4 out of 5]

Detailed

[Terry Burgess · Rating 5 out of 5]

If interested in British exploration would recommend.

[JP Mitton · Rating 4 out of 5]

An excellent account of Captain Cook's voyages of exploration and ultimate tragic death in Hawaii.

[Darlis · Rating 2 out of 5]

Very long but interesting. Not sure if I would recommend this to a non history geek, but lots of interesting details about the life and some of the times of Captain Cook

[Jack Heath]

Synopsis: re-creates Cook's 1766 to 1779 voyages of discovery to the Pacific: Australasia, the Pacific Islands and the west coast of the Americas.

[Gren Langley · Rating 3 out of 5]

So, James Cook might be one of my heroes, but I'm not so sure about this book. This book goes beyond his journals to put his journeys into historical context, but there are some inconsistencies and errors that I find a little too distracting.

[Ken Roberts · Rating 5 out of 5]

Loved it, well written

[Phil · Rating 5 out of 5]

Excellent history of the great explorer and his travel from England to the Pacific, Arctic and beyond.

[Graham Bear · Rating 5 out of 5]

Captain Cook was a great navigator and an exceptional explorer. This book is a wonderful insight into this great man's life. Recommended.

[Pejman · Rating 4 out of 5]

the OG of the seas