Excerpt from The Wide Wide Sea by Hampton Sides, plus links to reviews, author biography & more

I don't have an easy answer for that—more likely there are many not-so-easy ones—but I hope this book will lead readers toward some broader understanding. Perhaps part of the current resentment toward Cook has to do with the fact that on his final voyage something wasn't quite right with the formidable captain. Historians and forensic medical researchers have speculated about what was ailing him, whether it was a physical or mental malady, perhaps even a spiritual one. Whatever the root cause, his personality had definitely changed. Something was affecting his behavior and his judgment that marred the conduct of his last voyage. It may have even led to his death.

Whenever it has seemed relevant and interesting, I've let present-day controversies infuse and inform this book. I've tried to present the captain, and the goals and assumptions behind his third voyage, in all their flawed complexity. I neither lionize, demonize, nor defend him. I've simply tried to describe what happened during his consequential, ambitious, and ultimately tragic final voyage.

Excerpted from The Wide Wide Sea by Hampton Sides. Copyright © 2024 by Hampton Sides. Excerpted by permission of Doubleday. All rights reserved. No part of this excerpt may be reproduced or reprinted without permission in writing from the publisher.