Resolution : The Story of Captain Cook's Second Voyage of Discovery

by Peter Aughton

A year and a day after James Cook arrived back on English soil having claimed Australia and New Zealand for the British crown, he set sail again on a three-year journey (1772-1775) that still remains the greatest exploratory voyage ever undertaken in the far Southern waters of the Indian, Pacific and Atlantic Oceans. His was the first ship ever to cross the Antarctic Circle, and no sailing ship since has ventured further south through the ice. This is a colourful and exciting story of the crew and their life aboard the Resolution and the adventures that occurred whenever they landed on exotic islands and coasts such as Tahiti, Easter Island, the Tonga Islands and above all the snow, fog, treacherous ice and blizzards of Antarctica.

Genres: Nonfiction

Hardcover

First published February 12, 2004

Reviews

[Peter · Rating 4 out of 5]

Interesting book and well researched.

[Judith Nivison · Rating 4 out of 5]

Very interesting to follow this voyage on the maps. The narratives and discussions were an added personal perspective.

[Ela Bělíková · Rating 3 out of 5]

Not as interesting as the first one

[Ron · Rating 3 out of 5]

Aside from venturing to 71 degrees south latitude, into the pack ice of the Antarctic seas, and doing a lot of mapping of obscure Pacific Islands, the second voyage really did not do much. He never caught sight of the Antarctic continent, he discovered only one new island, New Caledonia, and ran into few particular problems. A rather dull history, of a rather dull expedition, all things considered
For a short book, it was rathe slow-moving. The excepts from shipmates' journals were more stylistically interesting than the book itself
I'll remember being disappointed in it, in both what it revealed (not much) and in its style (laboring, usually).