The Wide Wide Sea: Imperial Ambition, First Contact and the Fateful Final Voyage of Captain James Cook

Enjoyed the accuracy and story, the events were basically unknown to me and now feel better informed. Well written.

I discovered Hampton Sides a couple years ago with In The Kingdom of Ice. I immediately enjoyed his writing style. So then I read Blood and Thunder, and then Ghost Soldiers. You can tell that meticulous research has gone into every one of these books. But that really is the bare minimum for a non-fiction writing. And it's what comes after the meticulous research that keeps me coming back to Hampton Sides' books. He doesn't just tell interesting true stories. He tells them in an interesting way. Every one is a page turner. So when I heard about The Wide Wide Sea I ordered it as soon as it was available. And again I found a page turner about a fascinating period of history. If you are at all interested in sailing, exploration, or adventure give this one a read. As far as the physical condition of the book itself, it's well made and high quality.

What an amazing story, so well written that to call it a page-turner doesn't begin to do the tale justice. One reviewer called it "an instant classic" and I can only add 'and then some'. In short, Hampton Sides has achieved the wondrous goal of having written a history that reads like a thriller while also giving us fascinating details of Captain Cook as the man, and details of an 18th century round-the-world adventure I hadn't seen elsewhere before (for example, why ships of this period didn't take cats onboard to keep the rat population under control). The insights he gives us into James Cook's personality are illuminating and this is the first reference I've come across in all my reading of this period that 'Captain' Bligh had been one of Cook's officers before captaining his own ship and emerging with his own tragic story. The one very very small bone I have to pick was on page 228 (of a 400+-page book): "Over the centuries a few Spanish galleons, while making the regular spice run from the Philippines to Acapulco...." The main cargo of the Spanish galleon trade was firstly, silver (from its South American mines) followed by Chinese silk and other Chinese sundries, not spices, which by this time were losing their appeal in Europe. According to Professor Paul Freedman of Yale University, the culinary shift away from spices began in France in the mid-1600s, and was followed by the rest of the continent thereafter.

Great Story, so well written - Diving into history like you were on the ship. So many great insights into the time- higly recommended!

It happens several decades after the story of The Wager (the book written by David Grann) and ten years before the mutiny of the HMS Bounty. The first 50 pages are a bit boring, especially the ones about Mai. However, once the journey really begins, the book becomes fantastic. It is full of details, but it's not a heavy read in any sense. This paperback edition published by Penguin Books has good typography and some useful black and white maps and images. I think it's very well done.