CaptainCookRediscovered Format: Hardback

Although the popular imagination has forever linked Captain Jams Cook with the South Pacific, his crowning navigational and scientific achievements actually took place in the polar regions. Recognizing that Cook sailed more miles in the high latitudes of all of the world’s oceans than in the tropical zone, Captain Cook Rediscovered is the first modern study to examine his career from a North American vantage, giving due attention to his voyages in seas and lands that are usually neglected. While acknowledging the cartographic accomplishments of Cook’s first voyage, through Australasian seas, David L. Nicandri focuses here on the second and third voyages, near the poles, where Cook pioneered the science of iceberg and icepack formation. This groundbreaking book completely reorients an area of study that has been typically dominated by the “palm-tree paradigm”—resulting in a truly modern appraisal of Cook for the era of climate change.

David Nicandri was executive director of the Washington State Historical Society from 1987 to 2011 and was editor of the society’s journal, Columbia Magazine. He was awarded honorary doctorates from Gonzaga University, the University of Puget Sound, and the University of Idaho, and was recognized as a Distinguished Alumnus by SUNY at Plattsburgh.