A mariner never eclipsed
CAPTAIN COOK'S WORLD: MAPS OF THE LIFE AND VOYAGES OF JAMES COOK R.N.,br>
By John Robson
Random House $59.95
Reviewed by Hugh Laracy (Associate Professor of Pacific History at the University of
Auckland).
James Cook was the greatest historically verifiable navigator of the Pacific. The extent of his journeying, the quantity and accuracy of his charting and the accessibility he thereby conferred on the region - and especially on New Zealand - attest to his achievement.
Admittedly, the aftermath of his voyaging in Oceania has not been unequivocally benign, as commentators readily acknowledge, and as he himself observed. Still, Cook the mariner remains unchallenged. Fittingly, his journals and all the charts and art work produced by him and his acolytes (who include William Bligh) have been reproduced in large, lavish and expensive volumes.
Ironically, however, he barely rates a mention in the New Zealand Historical Atlas of 1997. It does not indicate where he had contacts with Maori people, of whom he left extensive descriptions, or even a copy of his remarkably accurate coastal outline.
Now, with Captain Cook's world, redress has been made, and munificently so. John Robson, formerly a geologist, is now a librarian at Waikato University. He has produced a comprehensive collection of clear and precise maps that illustrate not only every section of Cook's three expeditions, but also record every place with which he was ever associated, together with many of those where he is commemorated. Complementing the uncluttered and aesthetically pleasing maps is a detailed, factual, narrative commentary. Thus, the where? when? and what happened? of virtually every moment of Cook's career may be easily and accurately established.
Yet this is not a work of hagiography. Nor is it a derivative reworking of the established core of authoritive works - as is so much of the writing on Cook. Rather, it is an original contribution to the permanent corpus of Cook historiography. It does not trespass into that speculative arena where the meanings of Cook's endeavours are being subjected to earnest but evanescent - often ideologically driven - debate, but will endure as a valuable reference work.
On my shelves Robson's opus will sit companionably with those of Beaglehole, Smith and Joppien and Andrew David.
Second Review: Evening Post (Wellngton), 2000 August 18, p5.
This Cook book is worth looking at
CAPTAIN COOK’S WORLD: Maps Of The Life And Voyages Of James Cook R.N.
by John Robson
(Random House,hb $59.95, special slip-cased edition $79.95)
Reviewed by Gavin McLean (Historian at the Ministry for Heritage and Culture)
CAPTAIN JAMES COOK continues to fascinate us. While academics nervously exile him to an intellectual and moral Siberia, we file through the replica Endeavour in colossal numbers whenever it turns up in our harbours.
There’s no bigger Cook junkie than Hamilton librarian and Hakluyt Society member, John Robson, and for that we should be grateful. OK, sometimes this single chappie with two corgis comes dangerously close to trainspotting in his relentless gazetteering of every past and present Cook plaque, statue, museum or coffee shop(pe) but Captain Cook’s world is a wonderful Cook companion. It’s a magnificent obsession, a Cook book worth a look.
Unlike Hough and Aughton’s recent and somewhat disappointing biographies, Robson does not try to replace celebrated Cook biographer, JC Beaglehole. Instead, Captain Cook’s world takes another tack by supplementing the biographies with an historical atlas. Robson wants us to follow Cook’s life in maps, the art-form that Cook made his own.
The book’s a cracker. It is just over 200 pages long and is printed on good thick paper in four colours. Its four sections - Cook’s early life and naval career and the three great voyages of discovery - transports you off to every place that Cook ever visited (and a few more besides).
The detail is impressive. Forget the blurry, small world maps of the average Cook bio. Here the "London of Cook and Banks" plate, for example, boasts no fewer than 11 insets, showing precisely where either man lived, or lodged, even marking the sites of long-demolished houses. And those 11 insets are just part of one of the book’s 128 maps (most of which also feature several details and insets).
It’s possible to follow every stage of Cook’s voyages, often into small bays and anchorages. As you would expect, New Zealand features prominently. A detailed text (largely replicating the text sections of the book, but welcome nonetheless, since it saves Flicking back and forth) links people, places and events in great detail.
Remember that I called this book a magnificent obsession? Well, the final plate features the world’s sub-ocean troughs and seamounts named after Cook as well as the Cook Crater on the moon. There’s even a comparison between the starship Enterprise and HM Bark Endeavour. Nice try, John, but I can’t envisage Banks warning James that "there’s Klingons on the starboard bowsprit"!
-------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Third Review: Southland Times, 2000 October 18, p16.
Spotlight on Cook
Captain Cook's World
By John Robson
Publisher: Random House RRP: $59.95
Reviewer: FRANK GLEN
RECENTLY there was remaindered a special edition of New Zealand historical maps. It was reduced to a couple of hundred dollars from its original price of more than $700. To compare Captain Cook's World with the special edition is not unfair: indeed, this newer work, subtitled Maps of the Life and Voyages of James Cook RN, might well be better in content and definition of its maps.
Captain Cook seems to be a hardy annual who will not go away even in the new millennium. His extraordinary expeditions to the uttermost ends of the earth still fascinate and stimulate scholars and readers. One begins to wonder just what more remains to extract from the chests of history about Cook and his discovery.
If this new book is anything to judge by, then these maps introduce the reader and armchair explorer into a new world, a world which makes much clearer to the average reader the actual events of Cook's expeditions. The maps are not reproductions of Cook's originals or his contemporaries. They are drawn specially from current knowledge and define the coastlines as we know them today. Cook's journeys and his landings can be plotted to within a few metres on these maps.
The text gives adequate and full explanations that illuminate the journeys and adventures in an exciting and factual way. This leads the reader into a deeper and possibly more personal understanding of Cook as an individual.
As one fortunate enough to possess some of the original Cook journals and maps of his period, these latest ones are an asset beyond description. They tell a story accurately and visually which overrides the difficulty and sometimes confusing statements which accompany the originals. There is nothing like a clear road map to know where you are. These tell you exactly where Cook was, where he landed, who with, and where he died.
There exists a significant tome called Bibliography of Published Captain Cook, a record of everything that has been written about him. This is surely one title that will be added with confidence into the next edition.
The book's production is superior and it is worth every cent. It is bound to become a collector's item in the years ahead.