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Tony Horwitz
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Blue Latitudes: Boldly Going Where Captain Cook Has Gone Before Paperback – August 1, 2003

by Tony Horwitz (Author)
4.5 4.5 out of 5 stars 1,165 ratings
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In an exhilarating tale of historic adventure, the Pulitzer Prize-winning author of Confederates in the Attic retraces the voyages of Captain James Cook, the Yorkshire farm boy who drew the map of the modern world

Captain James Cook's three epic journeys in the 18th century were the last great voyages of discovery. His ships sailed 150,000 miles, from the Artic to the Antarctic, from Tasmania to Oregon, from Easter Island to Siberia. When Cook set off for the Pacific in 1768, a third of the globe remained blank. By the time he died in Hawaii in 1779, the map of the world was substantially complete.

Tony Horwitz vividly recounts Cook's voyages and the exotic scenes the captain encountered: tropical orgies, taboo rituals, cannibal feasts, human sacrifice. He also relives Cook's adventures by following in the captain's wake to places such as Tahiti, Savage Island, and the Great Barrier Reef to discover Cook's embattled legacy in the present day. Signing on as a working crewman aboard a replica of Cook's vessel, Horwitz experiences the thrill and terror of sailing a tall ship. He also explores Cook the man: an impoverished farmboy who broke through the barriers of his class and time to become the greatest navigator in British history.

By turns harrowing and hilarious, insightful and entertaining, BLUE LATITUDES brings to life a man whose voyages helped create the 'global village' we know today.

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  1. Print length
    496 pages
  2. Language
    English
  3. Publisher
    Picador
  4. Publication date
    August 1, 2003
  5. Dimensions
    5.35 x 1.2 x 8.2 inches
  6. ISBN-10
    0312422601
  7. ISBN-13
    978-0312422608
  8. See all details
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Editorial Reviews

Review

“Thoroughly enjoyable. No writer has better captured the heroic enigma that was Captain James Cook than Tony Horwitz in this amiable and enthralling excursion around the Pacific.” ―Bill Bryson, author of In a Sunburned Country

“Tony Horwitz's Blue Latitudes is one of the best. . . full of humor. . . an elegant running account of Cook's exploits.” ―The New York Times Book Review (cover review)

“Part history, part travelogue -- and mostly just great fun. . . This is history on a global scale, and Horwitz tells it surpassingly well.” ―Los Angeles Times

“A tour de force of evocative history, serious scholarship, and compelling writing.” ―The Washington Post

“Part Cook biography, part travelogue, and very much a stroke of genius.” ―The Philadelphia Inquirer

“Hilarious, brainy, and balanced. . . .A trip with Horwitz is as good as it gets.” ―The Charlotte Observer

“Tony Horwitz has done it again. . . Keen insight, open-mindedness and laugh-out-loud humor.” ―San Francisco Chronicle

“A staggering blend of historical research, character study, sociological analysis, and intriguing tales of travel.” ―The Boston Globe

“Curiosity, intelligence, compassion and a sense of adventure. . . I love reading Tony Horwitz.” ―Chicago Tribune

“Horwitz succeeds brilliantly in turning the English from stiff icons to flesh-and-blood human beings. The book's constant humor, honesty and judgment recall his own Confederates in the Attic and Bill Bryson's A Walk in the Woods.. . . This book will keep you enthralled.” ―The Seattle Times

About the Author

Tony Horwitz is a native of Washington, D.C., and a graduate of Brown University and Columbia University's Graduate School of Journalism. He worked for many years as a reporter, first in Indiana and then during a decade overseas in Australia, Europe, Africa, and the Middle East, mostly covering wars and conflicts as a foreign correspondent for The Wall Street Journal. After returning to the States, he won the Pulitzer Prize for national reporting and worked as a staff writer for The New Yorker before becoming a full-time author.

His books include Midnight Rising, A Voyage Long and Strange, Blue Latitudes, a national and New York Times bestseller about the Pacific voyages of Captain James Cook, Baghdad Without a Map, a national bestseller about the Middle East, and Confederates in the Attic, a national and New York Times bestseller about the Civil War.

Horwitz has been a fellow at the Radcliffe Institute for Advanced Study at Harvard University and a visiting scholar at the John Carter Brown Library at Brown University. He lives with his wife, Geraldine Brooks, and their son, Nathaniel, on the island of Martha's Vineyard in Massachusetts.

Product details

  • Publisher ‏ : ‎ Picador; First Edition (August 1, 2003)
  • Language ‏ : ‎ English
  • Paperback ‏ : ‎ 496 pages
  • ISBN-10 ‏ : ‎ 0312422601
  • ISBN-13 ‏ : ‎ 978-0312422608
  • Item Weight ‏ : ‎ 2.31 pounds
  • Dimensions ‏ : ‎ 5.35 x 1.2 x 8.2 inches
  • Customer Reviews:
    4.5 4.5 out of 5 stars 1,165 ratings

About the author

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Tony Horwitz

Tony Horwitz

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Tony is a native of Washington, D.C., and a graduate of Brown University and Columbia University’s Graduate School of Journalism. He spent a decade overseas as a foreign correspondent, mainly covering wars and conflicts for The Wall Street Journal. After returning to the U.S., he won the Pulitzer Prize for national reporting and wrote for The New Yorker before becoming a full-time author.

His books include the national and New York Times bestsellers, Confederates in the Attic, Blue Latitudes, Baghdad Without a Map and A Voyage Long and Strange. Midnight Rising, was named a New York Times Notable Book of 2011; one of the year’s ten best books by Library Journal; and won the 2012 William Henry Seward Award for Excellence in Civil War Biography. His latest, BOOM, is his first ebook, about a journey through the tar sands and along the route of the Keystone XL pipeline.

Tony has also been a fellow at the Radcliffe Institute for Advanced Study at Harvard University, and a visiting scholar at the John Carter Brown Library at Brown University. He lives with his wife, Geraldine Brooks, and their sons, Nathaniel and Bizu, on Martha’s Vineyard in Massachusetts.

Customer reviews

4.5 out of 5 stars
4.5 out of 5
1,165 global ratings

Top reviews from the United States

OKay
5.0 out of 5 stars Captain Cook's Travels Through Modern Eyes
Reviewed in the United States on January 20, 2024
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Blue Latitudes: Boldly Going Where Captain Cook Has Gone Before Tony Horwitz
"Being in a ship is being in a jail, with a chance to drown."
Tony Horwitz takes us across time, hemispheres and centuries to recapture the Cook’s adventures and examine his legacy in today's Pacific. In the late 1700’s Captain James Cook made three epic 18th-century explorations of the Pacific Ocean that were the last of their kind, literally completing the map of the world. This entertaining book intermingles four elements.

• An excellent biography including passages from his detailed journals.
“This man of humble beginnings became one of the world's greatest explorers. In the course of 10 years, his Pacific travels covered over 200,000 miles at a time when one third of the world was unknown and unmapped. He traveled 140 of the earth's 180 degrees latitude, as well as its entire longitude. He named more places (rivers, islands, points, bays, bluffs, etc.) than any other man, before or since. He was a shrewd handler of men--both those above and below him in rank. He was a prolific writer of journals and logs, which are still read today. Cook was also a brilliant surveyor and chart maker: his map of New Zealand was used until the 1990's. His voyages led to the discovery of thousands of new plants and animals, and his claiming land for Britain helped to eventually lead Britain in becoming a major empire that spanned 11 thousand miles.”

• An adventurous, serious, and humorous travelogue
In order to understand sailing at the time Horwitz begins by working as a sailor aboard the replica of Cook's ship Endeavour (complete with 14 inches of hammock space). After that “wake up” lesson, he attempts to follow in Cook's footsteps and see locations as Cook might have seen them. Horwitz goes to Canada, Tahiti, Bora-Bora, New Zealand, Australia, Niue, Tonga, England, Alaska and Hawaii. He meets island kings and beauty queens, and carouses the South Seas with a hilarious and outrageous companion, an Aussie named Roger. He tells his own story of following in Cook's wake, visiting his far-flung destinations (with the exception of Antarctica) and investigating his legacy.

• An examination of his impact on the world he discovered
Interestingly Cook himself is aware of the changes that come from contact with the outside world: disease, STD's, materialism and religion. Attempts to civilize these beautiful islands result in eradicating the native cultures and sometime the entire native population just a few years after Cook’s “discoveries. Today very little actually exists from Cook's time. Places he lived, worshipped and worked are pretty much gone. Ironically, journals, diaries, logs and sketches from Cook's travels are in some cases the only record of these native cultures.

• An historical perspective of both his person and his “discoveries.”
Horwitz discovers that while Cook is revered in his native England, the view from many of the Pacific nations is quite the opposite. From Australia to the Aleutians the reaction to Cook’s name ranges from disdain to indifference to admiration. The cultural and environmental havoc resulting from the opening of the unspoiled Pacific follows Cook because he was first. However, his determination, bravery and strength as a leader, planner, and captain is very clear.

"the best you can do is catch an echo of the man. You can almost never reach out and touch him."
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Richard M. Robidoux
4.0 out of 5 stars As entertaining as it is informative.
Reviewed in the United States on February 21, 2022
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Wonderful reading with its back and forth journey between Cook’s time and today. I enjoyed the Mark Twain like and Bill Bryson like humor. Very instructive and entertaining. I am now looking forward to Tony’s book, “Confederates in the Attic.”
3 people found this helpful
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Ilya Korobkov
5.0 out of 5 stars Excellent
Reviewed in the United States on August 2, 2020
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The world does not suffer from the shortage of books written about Cook, but this concise, well-researched and entertaining chronicle of his great voyages should be a must-read for anyone looking to learn more about Cook and the impact his discoveries has made upon the world. It doesn't claim to be a definitive biography (and helpfully points you toward the books that do), but it does strive to paint an honest and impartial portrait of the great explorer.

I didn't know much about James Cook before and, upon finishing this, I'm happy to conclude that he cuts a much more sympathetic figure than, say, Columbus. Yeah, I know, that's a pretty low bar to clear, but despite his personal shortcomings – stern towards his underlings, obsequious with his superiors, grim and occasionally ruthless – Cook seem to be more open-minded, understanding and even empathetic towards the cultures he encounters on his journeys than any other great navigator. Particulary interesting is the fact that at some point in his naval career Cook began to realize that whenever he went, the Western civilization soon followed, robbing the native people of their resources, polluting their lands, killing them with steel and unknown diseases, and ultimately forcing them to become a part of increasingly interconnected – and increasingly shrinking – world.

Which brings us to the second part of this book (well, not a separate part, actually, – the two narration threads are intertwined). As the self-deprecating subtitle suggests, Horwitz actually tries to follow in Cook's f̶o̶o̶t̶s̶t̶e̶p̶s̶ wake, even going as far as making the first leg of his journey on a replica of Cook's first ship, Endeavour. In his quest Horwitz naturally cuts plenty of corners: he prefers flying to sailing, he skips Antarctica in favor of Cook's native Yorkshire and he absolutely refuses to undergo the authentic scurvy experience. Nevertheless, he more than makes up for these shortcomings by talking (and carefully listening) to the natives about their relationship with Cook and the changes his visit brought to their lands. As expected, the opinions vary: Cook is alternatively lionized and vilified, condemned as an invader, remembered as a demigod and conveniently scapegoated as a symbol of all colonial evils by administrations that continue to opress the aboriginal populations to this day. Even his fatal conflict with Hawaiians is still a subject to ongoing debates and speculations, and the author does his best to engage with all viewpoints and present an honest and impartial – if tantalizingly incomplete – picture.

Read it.
8 people found this helpful
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l.stormy lantz
5.0 out of 5 stars A very good read.
Reviewed in the United States on May 24, 2022
Verified Purchase
I thoroughly enjoyed Tony Horwitz's book on the 3 voyages of discovery by Cpt.James Cook. Learn about Cook as Horwitz follows in Cook's footsteps and describes his personal adventure as it relates to that of Cook's whilst telling Cook's story simultaneously. I recommend this to both Cook fans and those who want to learn about the greatest adventurer on Earth for the first time. This book is very readable and interesting.
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Elizabeth M Voigt
5.0 out of 5 stars History at its finest
Reviewed in Canada on February 6, 2024
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This was a good read for me. I like all Tony Horwitz history - amusing, sometimes frightening, all in all a great read.
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Cornwall Drifter
5.0 out of 5 stars A modern perspective of Cook
Reviewed in the United Kingdom on February 8, 2023
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The book is very well written. It’s insightful and funny. The author pulls no punches regarding the current perspectives / situations of the locations Cook visited on his 3 voyages. I will be visiting Australia. Norfolk Island and French Polynesia this month. The book (plus others) has helped me form a perspective from which I can view the locations for myself.
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Stadtsparkasse Düsseldorf
4.0 out of 5 stars Probleme wurden gelöst.
Reviewed in Germany on May 12, 2021
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Probleme wurden gelöst
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Amazon Customer
4.0 out of 5 stars An excellent introduction to Cook’s travels
Reviewed in Canada on April 28, 2019
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The author alternates between his tracing of Cook’s voyages and Cook’s own voyages. His retracing of Cook’s voyages is extremely informative and interesting. We learn a lot about the Captain, his men, their travels and their interactions with native peoples in the Pacific.
The author, unfortunately, did not cover Cook’s voyages to Newfoundland and eastern North America.
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Nick R.
5.0 out of 5 stars Prompt
Reviewed in the United Kingdom on July 15, 2021
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Book was gift to friend joining merchant navy, I read it years ago, brilliant. Arrived promptly in good condition.
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