Book Review: Hampton Sides revisits Captain James Cook, a divisive figure in the South Pacific
Time:2024-05-21 06:55:17 Source:styleViews(143)
Captain James Cook’s voyages in the South Pacific in the late 1700s exemplify the law of unintended consequences. He set out to find a westward ocean passage from Europe to Asia but instead, with the maps he created and his reports, Cook revealed the Pacific islands and their people to the world.
In recent decades, Cook has been vilified by some scholars and cultural revisionists for bringing European diseases, guns and colonization. But Hampton Sides’ new book, “The Wide Wide Sea: Imperial Ambition, First Contact and the Fateful Final Voyage of Captain James Cook,” details that Polynesian island life and cultures were not always idyllic.
Priests sometimes made human sacrifices. Warriors mutilated enemy corpses. People defeated in battle sometimes were enslaved. King Kamehameha, a revered figure in Hawaii, unified the Hawaiian Islands in 1810 at a cost of thousands of warriors’ lives.
Previous:Election 2024: Biden and Trump bypassed the Commission on Presidential Debates
Next:Trump accepts a VP debate but wants it on Fox News. Harris has already said yes to CBS
You may also like
- With Djokovic awaiting the winner, Murray trails Hanfmann at rain
- FIFA Congress expected to reach important decisions
- How Princess Diana's cigarette
- 32,000 runners drawn for 2024 Guiyang Marathon
- Messi in and Dybala out in Argentina squad for pre
- Chinese premier meets delegation from UK
- Shanghai International Film Festival to feature French film week
- Russia puts Zelensky on wanted list
- Red Lobster seeks bankruptcy protection after closing some restaurants