"Blue Latitudes: Boldly Going Where Captain Cook Has Gone Before"

(Reviewed by Mary Whipple FEB 01, 2003)

"Ambition leads me as far as I think possible for man to go."

Retracing the journeys of Captain James Cook, modern author Tony Horwitz writes a fast-paced, fascinating, and often very humorous account of his "walk" in the footsteps of Captain Cook, an explorer he obviously admires and whom he attempts to understand and make understandable to his readers.

From 1768 to his death in Hawaii in 1779, Captain James Cook made three epic journeys, charting most of the south Pacific, the coast of Alaska, and parts of Antarctica, claiming much of it in the name of the king. Covering 200,000 miles, Cook "explored more of the earth's surface than anyone in history," and redrew the map of the world. But Captain Cook remains a relatively obscure historical figure, even in his native land, and is the subject of legend, much of it fanciful, in the places he charted.

In celebrating Cook's achievements, Horwitz also analyzes the man and his values, and evaluates his influence, as he attempts to put Cook's discoveries into their rightful perspective.

Accompanied by Roger Williamson, an Aussie free spirit dedicated to wine, women, and fun, author Horwitz travels to those places "discovered" by Captain Cook, describing Cook's reception by indigenous cultures, and observing the cultures as they exist today--in virtually all cases, despoiled by contact with the "civilized" world.

Tahiti, Bora Bora, New Zealand, Australia, Tonga, the Aleutian Islands, and Hawaii, before and after western contact, are presented in detail, using Capt. Cook's own journals, the journals of naturalist Joseph Banks (who accompanied him on his important first voyage), drawings by Cook's artists, and the research of Cook biographer John Beaglehole to establish the pre-contact cultures. Horwitz's personal observations, interviews with local inhabitants, and on-site research assess the lasting effects.

Cook becomes accessible as a personality because of his friendship with
Banks, who often served as his sounding board, and, it appears, loosened him up a bit. Naturally expansive and enthusiastic, and uninhibited by responsibilities and the sense of morality which seemed to dominate Cook, Banks serves as a foil to Cook. While Cook conscientiously records the contours of islands, Banks is far more interested in getting to know the local residents.

Horwitz's friend Williamson, on the trip primarily for fun, not scholarship, serves the same purpose in Horwitz's book, creating humorous diversions both for Horwitz and the reader and spicing up Horwitz's serious research.

Fascinating as a biography of the complex Captain Cook, as a lively record of the age of exploration, as a modern adventure to "romantic" south Pacific islands, and as research on cultural anthropology, this is an exhilarating and fast-paced narrative, one which will reward careful reading and cause the reader to examine the dubious results of "civilization." Horwitz obviously enjoyed his research, and the reader will, too, however vicariously.

• Amazon readers rating: from 127 reviews

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Bibliography: (with links to Amazon.com)

• One for the Road: An Outback Adventure (1988)
• Baghdad Without a Map: And Other Misadventures in the Arabia (1991)
• Confederates in the Attic: Dispatches from the Unfinished Civil War(1998)
• Blue Latitudes: Boldly Going Where Captain Cook Has Gone Before (2002)
• A Voyage Long and Strange (2008)
• Midnight Rising: John Brown and the Raid Tht Sparked the Civil War (2011)

 

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Book Marks:

• The official and excellent Web site for Tony Horwitz
• wdog.com review of Confederates in the Attic
• by Stander interview on Blue Latitudes
• Contrary review of A Voyage Long and Strange
• The New York Times review of Midnight Rising

 

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About the Author:

Tony Horwitz is a graduate of Brown University and Columbia University's Graduate School of Journalism. He first wrote about the South and the Civil War as a third-grader in Maryland when he pencilled a book that began: "The War was started when after all the states had sececed (sic)." He went on to write about war full-time as a foreign correspondent for The Wall Street Journal, reporting on conflicts in Bosnia, the Middle East, Africa, and Northern Ireland. After a decade abroad, Horwitz moved to a crossroads in the Blue Ridge Mountains of Virginia, where he now works as a staff writer for The New Yorker.

His awards include the Pulitzer Prize for national reporting in 1995 for a series on working conditions in low-wage America and the Overseas Press Club Award for best foreign news reporting in 1992 for his coverage of the Gulf War. Before becoming a reporter, Horwitz lived and worked in rural Kentucky and Mississippi and produced a PBS documentary about Southern timber workers.

Horwitz and his wife--Geraldine Brooks, also a journalist and author--have a son, Nathaniel. They live in Waterford, Virginia.