The Wide Wide Sea

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The Wide Wide Sea

By: Hampton Sides

Narrated by: Peter Noble

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About this listen

Brought to you by Penguin.

A NEW YORK TIMES TOP-TEN BOOK OF 2024
A BARACK OBAMA BOOK OF THE YEAR

From New York Times bestselling author Hampton Sides, the epic account of the most momentous voyage of the Age of Exploration, culminating in Captain James Cook's death

On July 12th, 1776, Captain James Cook, already lionized as the greatest explorer in British history, set off on his third voyage in HMS Resolution. Two-and-a-half years later, on a beach in Hawaii, Cook was killed – beaten and stabbed in a conflict with the indigenous population.

What brought Cook to these final moments, so at odds with his reputation? Renowned for his humane leadership, dedication to science and the curiosity and respect, not judgement, with which he greeted societies that were new to him, Cook had already mapped huge swathes of the Pacific and initiated first European contact with numerous native peoples.

The stated mission for his third voyage was to return a Tahitian man, Mai, who had become the toast of London high society, to his home islands. But Cook carried secret orders to venture north, to discover the fabled Northwest Passage and chart and claim lands before Britain’s imperial rivals. And Cook himself was different on his final, fatal voyage.

Deeply researched and vividly told, The Wide Wide Sea is at once a ferociously-paced, epic adventure and a searching examination of the consequences of the Age of Exploration from a master storyteller.

‘Extraordinarily compulsive and fascinating. I felt it somehow told me more about the making of the modern world than any book I had read for ages' STEPHEN FRY, BOOKS OF THE YEAR, Observer
‘An astounding tale . . . recreated in swashbuckling detail . . . Sides delivers it with narrative urgency. The cast of characters is a joy’ Sunday Times
‘An enthralling account of Captain Cook’s final, fatal voyage… An excellent new book’ The Economist
‘A rollicking good read, with a tone that reminds me of David Grann’s recent tale of the 1741 Wager shipwreck . . . riveting’ Daily Telegraph
'Vivid and propulsive' New York Times

MCCRUM©2024 Hampton Sides (P)2024 Penguin Audio

18th Century

Adventurers, Explorers & Survival

Engineering

Historical

Maritime History & Piracy

Modern

World

Sailing

England

Oceania

Critic Reviews

An astounding tale

A rollicking good read, with a tone that reminds me of David Grann’s recent tale of the 1741 Wager shipwreck . . . riveting

An enthralling account of Captain Cook’s final, fatal voyage . . . an excellent book

A riveting book, deeply researched, light of touch and always judicious and full-sailed about an exceptional man's final extraordinary journey

Vivid and propulsive . . . New Zealand, Tahiti, Kamchatka, Hawaii and London come alive with you-are-there descriptions of gales, crushing ice packs and gun smoke . . . but Sides isn’t just interested in retelling an adventure tale. He also wants to present it from a 21st-century point of view. The Wide Wide Sea fits neatly into a growing genre that includes David Grann’s The Wager and Candice Millard’s River of the Gods'

A lightning rod, an icon, a totem, a cipher, Cook remains endlessly fascinating. A lively, vivid, highly readable addition to the vast body of literature about a powerful and complicated figure whose legacy – love him or hate him – is impossible to ignore

'Hampton Sides, an acclaimed master of the nonfiction narrative, has taken on Cook’s story and retells it for the 21st century . . . The result is a work that will enthrall Cook’s admirers, inform his critics and entertain everyone in between'

A thrilling tale

'With gripping prose, Sides details Cook's increasingly erratic behavior as he explored vast swaths of the Pacific and scrambled to find the fabled Northwest Passage along the ice-choked coast of Alaska. His account lays bare the Age of Exploration's moral perils, which continue to reverbarate today'

'Sides make a persuasive case in 387 pages of diligent, riveting reporting that Cook came as a navigator and mapmaker and in dramatically opening what was known about our world, made us all richer in knowledge'

Most relevant

These days the only time I usually heard about Cook is when a statue of his got vandalised or when some panelist lumps him in with all colonialists. This book offers a brilliant analysis of the man, what he was good at, his ability as a diplomat, his empathy for his men and for native people and his weaknesses that ended up leading to his death.

He's usually a man it's cool to dislike these days, but after listening to his my opinion on Cook has completely changed. I often think it's sometimes a bit unfair comparing a historical figure with attitudes of today but Cook was much more forward thinking than I had thought or been told. He was also doing his job as one of Europe's greatest explorers and map makers.

One of the most interesting aspects of this book are all the meetings Cook had with people who viewed him as a hostile invader but then soon saw him as a curious visitor who often had to make contact to ask for advice or for supplies. It's amazing how many of these interactions ended up as good natured and valuable and turns on its head the assumptions we often hear about old colonial attitudes back then.

Brilliant narration too - always kept the story engaging and interesting.