THE WIDE WIDE SEA Imperial Ambition, First Contact and the Fateful Final Voyage of Captain James Cook

Of the several audiobooks about British sea explorer James Cook, this is one of the most memorable. Peter Noble is a powerful narrator, and he weds himself to this action-packed story with deep empathy and understanding. As the Revolutionary War unfolded on the east side of the North American continent, Cook explored the west, searching in vain for a Northwest Passage. Along the way, he explored much of the west Pacific, stumbling upon Hawaii, where his crews introduced metalworking and venereal disease, and soon roused open hostilities. Cook is a complex, contradictory protagonist, and Sides brings an effective degree of balance and insight to a revisionist portrait that finds many fissures in the great explorer's heroic facade. D.A.W. © AudioFile 2024, Portland, Maine [Published: APRIL 2024]