HAMPTON SIDES: THE WIDE WIDE SEA

Join us as we welcome HAMPTON SIDES on WEDNESDAY, JUNE 18 at 6:00 PM to celebrate the release of the paperback of his book THE WIDE WIDE SEA.

ABOUT THE BOOK:

NEW YORK TIMES BESTSELLER - A "thrilling and superbly crafted" (The Wall Street Journal) account of the most momentous voyage of the Age of Exploration, which culminated in Captain James Cook's death in Hawaii, and left a complex and controversial legacy still debated to this day.

A BEST BOOK OF THE YEAR: THE NEW YORK TIMES, TIME, THE ECONOMIST, NPR, THE NEW YORKER, THE SMITHSONIAN, AND KIRKUS REVIEWS

"In this masterly history, Sides tracks the 18th-century English naval officer James Cook's third and final voyage across the globe, painting a vivid and propulsive portrait."--The New York Times Book Review

On July 12th, 1776, Captain James Cook, already lionized as the greatest explorer in British history, set off on his third voyage in his ship the HMS Resolution. Two-and-a-half years later, on a beach on the island of Hawaii, Cook was killed in a conflict with native Hawaiians. How did Cook, who was unique among captains for his respect for Indigenous peoples and cultures, come to that fatal moment?

Hampton Sides' bravura account of Cook's last journey both wrestles with Cook's legacy and provides a thrilling narrative of the titanic efforts and continual danger that characterized exploration in the 1700s. Cook was renowned for his peerless seamanship, his humane leadership, and his dedication to science. On previous expeditions, Cook mapped huge swaths of the Pacific, including the east coast of Australia, and initiated first European contact with numerous peoples. He treated his crew well and endeavored to learn about the societies he encountered with curiosity and without judgment.

Yet something was different on this last voyage. Cook became mercurial, resorting to the lash to enforce discipline, and led his two vessels into danger time and again. Uncharacteristically, he ordered violent retaliation for perceived theft on the part of native peoples. This may have had something to do with his secret orders, which were to chart and claim lands before Britain's imperial rivals could, and to discover the fabled Northwest Passage. Whatever Cook's intentions, his scientific efforts were the sharp edge of the colonial sword, and the ultimate effects of first contact were catastrophic for Indigenous people around the world. The tensions between Cook's overt and covert missions came to a head on the shores of Hawaii. His first landing there was harmonious, but when Cook returned after mapping the coast of the Pacific Northwest and Alaska, his exploitative treatment of the Hawaiians led to the fatal encounter.

At once a ferociously-paced story of adventure on the high seas and a searching examination of the complexities and consequences of the Age of Exploration, THE WIDE WIDE SEA is a major work from one of our finest narrative nonfiction writers.

"Propulsive and vivid history" --The New York Times Book Review

"Gripping . . . It isn't possible in this short space to describe Side's hair-raising accounts of the journey . . . Sides recreates the newness of the experience, the vast differences in and among Indigenous cultures, and natural phenomena that were as terrifying as they were wondrous."
--The Washington Post

"[T]hrilling and superbly-crafted" -- Wall Street Journal

"Hampton Sides, an acclaimed master of the nonfiction narrative, has taken on Cook's story and retells it for the 21st century . . . The result is a work that will enthrall Cook's admirers, inform his critics and entertain everyone in between." --Los Angeles Times

"The great explorer's ill-starred last mission and violent death in Hawaii are recreated in swashbuckling detail...an astounding tale and Sides delivers the exciting episodes with a pressing narrative urgency. The cast of characters is a joy." -The Sunday Times (London)

"Hampton Sides's riveting, rollicking new book The Wide Wide Sea investigates the great navigator's last, doomed journey" --The Telegraph (UK)

"With gripping prose, Sides details Cook's increasingly erratic behavior as he explored vast swaths of the Pacific and scrambled to find the fabled Northwest Passage along the ice-choked coast of Alaska. His account lays bare the Age of Exploration's moral perils, which continue to reverberate today." --Outside Magazine

"Sides has written a riveting book, deeply researched, light of touch and always judicious and full-sailed about an exceptional man's final extraordinary journey." --The Spectator

"The Wide Wide Sea portrays Cook as a complicated figure driven by instincts and motives that often seem to have been opaque even to him . . . [A]s Cook himself seemed to have realized, and at times lamented, he was but an instrument in a much, much larger scheme."
--The New Yorker

"An acclaimed historian takes to the sea in this rousing tale of exploration . . . Sides draws on numerous contemporaneous sources to create a fascinating, immersive adventure story featuring just the right amount of historical context . . . Lusciously detailed and insightful history, masterfully told." -- Kirkus Reviews, (starred)

"This exquisitely crafted and novelistic portrait of the mercurial captain enthralls."
-- Publishers Weekly, (starred)

"Beautifully written and impeccably researched, The Wide Wide Sea will delight readers new to the topic as well as those versed in earlier looks at James Cook and his milieu."
-- Booklist

"[O]ne of the premier historians of our day . . . Sides brings to life all the excitement, drudgery, politics, and intercultural complications of the first interactions between the peoples of the Pacific and Europeans . . . As a guide through such murky cultural waters, Sides is unsurpassed."
--Chapter 16

ABOUT THE AUTHOR:

HAMPTON SIDES is the author of The New York Times bestselling histories On Desperate Ground, In the Kingdom of Ice, Hellhound on his Trail, Blood and Thunder, and Ghost Soldiers, which won the PEN USA Award for Nonfiction. He lives in Santa Fe, New Mexico.