Horwitz - Blue Latitudes

BLUE LATITUDES. Copyright 2002 by Tony Horwitz. All rights reserved. Printed in the

United States of America. No part of this book may be used or reproduced in any manner

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FrontispieceNational Maritime Museum, London

Cartography by Jeffrey L. Ward

Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data

Horwitz, Tony, 1958

Blue latitudes : boldly going where Captain Cook has gone before / Tony Horwitz.

p. cm.

Includes bibliographical references (p. 453).

ISBN 0-312-42260-1

1. Cook, James, 1728-1779Journeys. 2. Voyages around the

world. 3. OceaniaDiscovery and exploration. 4. Horwitz, Tony,

1958JourneysOceania. 5. Endeavour II (Ship) I. Title.

G420.C65H67 2002

910,92dc21

2002024133

First published in the United States by Henry Holt and Company

10 9 8

Praise for Blue Latitudes

Hilarious, brainy, and balanced... A trip with Horwitz is as good as it gets.

The Charlotte Observer

Horwitzs adventures pay illuminating tribute to the great navigatorto Captain Cook himself and to his intrepid eighteenth-century colleagues, including the improbably attractive Sir Joseph Banks. But most of all Blue Latitudes offers clear-eyed, vivid, and highly entertaining reassurance that there are still outlandish worlds to be discovered.

Caroline Alexander, author of The Endurance:
Shackletons Legendary Antarctic Expedition

Blue Latitudes is a rollicking read that is also a sneaky work of scholarship, providing new and unexpected insights into the man who out-discovered Columbus. A terrific bookI inhaled it in one weekend.

Nathaniel Philbrick, author of In the Heart of the Sea

One of the best... full of humor... It is with people that Horwitz excels. As he demonstrated in Confederates in the Attic, he has a gift for getting them to open up. A terrific reporter, Horwitz investigates how the places he visits have changed.... What he also does, and what makes this book so absorbing, is intersperse among all the details of life today in these far-flung places an elegant running account of Cooks exploits.

The New York Times Book Review (cover)

Compelling... Horwitz is particularly convincing when hes establishing just how harsh a sailors life could be in the 1700s, why most of them were drunk so much of the time, and why todays mariners have it relatively easy.... Remarkable.

The Oregonian (Portland)

A rewarding andtrust me on thiswitty tale of a remarkable explorer who now occupies a controversial place in history because of disease, greed, thievery, and prostitution that followed in his wake... Perhaps the highest praise of any book is that it takes you somewhere. Horwitz manages to do this on two levels, mingling history with a humorous travelogue.

The Mercury News (San Jose)

A swashbuckling history.

Newsday

An entertaining and rewarding read. Horwitz remains an intriguing sketcher of characters, and there are plenty of aging hippies, burnt-out colonials, and out-and-out oddballs in his path. Hes still the master of the targeted anecdote or factoid... Charming... Blue Latitudes stretches from Easter Island to Alaska, from Cape Horn to Indonesia. In Mr. Horwitzs company, it seems all too short a trip.

Sunday Star-News

Delightful... [Horwitz] is an observant traveler, with an eye for both the oddball and the salient. He also has the good sense to enlist the services of a madcap Aussie traveling companion, who is deter mined to make certain that any journey, to be worth its salt, must include plenty of misadventures.

Seattle Post-Intelligencer

At once well-researched, gripping, and peppered with humorous pas sages... The books literary magic comes from mixing information from Horwitzs observations with observations written by Cook him self.... Blue Latitudes ought to appeal to diverse audiencesthose who devour travel books, those who care about the mixed legacy of famous dead white males, and those who treasure memorable writing whatever the subject matter.St. Louis Post-Dispatch

Thanks to Horwitzs thorough researchhe seems to have read all of Cooks journals, previous biographies, and anthropological studies of the Pacificnaval life and island life come brilliantly alive.... Paul Theroux travels the world and finds disappointment; Tony Horwitz finds a cast of colorful characters and history embedded in the land.

The Providence Journal

A compelling account.Milwaukee Journal Sentinel

[Horwitz] weaves his own experiences with those gleaned from Cooks own writings arid those of his crew into a fabric dense with the delicious details that keep readers turning pages long past bedtime.

Chicago Tribune

Filled with history and alive with contrasts. Kirkus Reviews

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

This alternately hilarious, poignant, and insightful book is history for people who dont like history, and a travelogue full of wonder and smart observation, not jaded cynicism.... Horwitz succeeds brilliantly in turning the English from stiff icons to flesh-and-blood human, beings. The books constant humor, honesty, and judgment recall his own Confederates in the Attic or Bill Brysons A Walk in the Woods.... This book will keep you enthralled.

The Seattle Times

Tony Horwitz has done it again.... [With] keen insight, open-mindedness and laugh-out-loud humor, he.... travel[s] across the globe in search of the memory of Capt. James Cook.

San Francisco Chronicle

Horwitz has a self-deprecating wit that translates well into print, making him an eloquent Everyman in whatever exotic setting he enters. He is a meticulous observer, a preternaturally gifted student of human nature.The Atlanta-Journal Constitution

With prodigious research and a willingness to raise the subject of Captain Cook with anyone, including a drunk, a king, and a girl in a wet T-shirt, Horwitz has managed to muscle a big, sloppy idea into something coherent and fun to read... Horwitz reveals the most about Cook by acting like Cook, exploring each place with the same energy and relentless curiosity as the man himself.... He one-upped Cook and made it home in one piece.Forbes FYI

Horwitz offers an affectionate but convincing defense of the captain as a man driven by a stubborn Enlightenment faith in firsthand observation, and conjures the heros primal encounters by getting off the beaten path himself.Outside

[An] engaging outing... Horwitz seamlessly weaves humorous anecdotes from Cooks journals with his own peripatetic observations and without succumbing to hero worship, he conveys Cooks lifelong romance with traveling to the far reaches of the then-unknown world.