
In "The Wide Wide Sea," Hampton Sides masterfully chronicles Captain Cook's fateful final voyage, where imperial ambition met Indigenous reality. Named a Best Book by The New York Times and seven other prestigious outlets, this riveting account reveals how Cook's secret orders transformed exploration into colonization.
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Picture a Hawaiian fisherman in January 1778, paddling frantically toward shore, eyes wide with terror. Behind him loom two massive ships with fire burning atop them and strange holes puncturing their sides. On deck stand creatures with "deformed" heads-actually tricorne hats-and "loose and folding skin"-European uniforms. As thousands gather on the beach, a collective shiver runs through the crowd. Everyone senses the same truth: their world is about to change forever. This moment captures the essence of Captain James Cook's third and final voyage-an expedition that would chart unknown waters, bridge vastly different cultures, and end in shocking violence. Cook had already become history's greatest explorer, disproving the existence of a mythical southern continent and mapping vast stretches of the Pacific. Yet this journey would reveal something more profound than geography: the devastating complexity of first contact between civilizations. What happens when the most celebrated navigator of his age meets cultures that have thrived for millennia without European "discovery"? The answer is far more nuanced than simple conquest or collaboration.