The Trial of the Cannibal Dog: Captain Cook in the South Seas by Anne Salmond

$25.00 NZD

Category: Pacific | Series: Allen Lane History S. | Reading Level: good-very good

The Trial of the Cannibal Dog is a spectacular recreation of three of the greatest and most startling of all human journeys. The Pacific voyages of James Cook explored the ice-bound fringes of the Arctic and Antarctic, sailed across perilous tropical seas, survived hurricanes and volcanic eruptions, dis covered unknown lands and peoples and made their Captain an icon of imperial history. Yet, as Anne Salmond shows, the story of these epic South Sea journeys is far more than one of conquest and control. She has devoted a lifetime to the study of relations between Europeans and Polynesians, and this startling, rich, stylish book is the result. In Salmond?s account, Cook?s great voyages regain their dreamlike quality as they encounter the last major human communities, untouched by wider worlds. Far from being little wooden islands of Englishness in a Polynesian sea, his ships and the men in them are as much changed by what happens as the islanders they meet. We see them alarmed and entranced by the islanders? open sexuality, shocked by human sacrifice and cannibalism, but also forging relationships with Pacific Island friends and lovers, acquiring tattoos and learning to speak Polynesian languages, with Cook himself granted the status of high chief in many areas before his violent downfall. Filled with astonishing descriptions, drawing on all the surviving accounts of New Zealand, Tahiti, Easter Island, Hawaii, Tonga, the Society Islands and the New Hebrides, The Trial of the Cannibal Dog re-imagines the two worlds that explosively collided in the eighteenth century and the lasting impact of that collision. ...Show more

Endeavour: The Ship and the Attitude That Shaped the Western World by Peter Moore

$18.00 NZD

Category: Naval | Reading Level: very good

THE SUNDAY TIMES BESTSELLER 'HISTORY BOOK OF THE YEAR' Christopher Hart, Sunday Times An inventive biography of one of the most famous ships of all time - an alluring combination of history, adventure and science The Enlightenment was an age of endeavours. Britain was consumed by the impulse for grand p rojects. In 1768 the Royal Navy bought a Whitby collier for an expedition to the South Seas. No one could have guessed she would become the most significant ship in the history of British exploration. Her name was Endeavour. Endeavour was a ship with many lives, famously carrying James Cook on his first great voyage to the Pacific islands. She was there at the Wilkes Riots in London and witnessed the bloody birth of the United States. A Polynesian priest, botanists, the first kangaroo to arrive in Britain and Hessian soldiers were just a few amongst her many passengers. According to Charles Darwin, she helped Cook add a hemisphere to the civilised world. NASA named a space shuttle after her. Yet to others, she was a toxic symbol, responsible for the dispossession and disruption of societies. For the first time, Peter Moore tells Endeavour's complete story, exploring the different lives of this remarkable ship -- from the oak that made her to her rich and complex legacy. 'Fascinating and richly detailed... Peter Moore has brought us an acute insight into the ship that carried some of the most successful explorers across the world. A fine book that's definitely worth exploring' Michael Palin ...Show more

So Noble a Captain: The Life and Voyages of Ferdinand Magellan by Charles McKew Parr

$40.00 NZD

Category: Naval | Reading Level: good to very good

The Explorations of Captain James Cook in the Pacific by James Cook

$10.00 NZD

Category: Naval | Reading Level: fair

"No man ever did more to alter and correct the map of the Earth," writes Percy Adams in his new Introduction, than James Cook, the Scotland-born British naval commander who rose from humble beginnings to pilot three great eighteenth-century voyages of discovery in the then practically uncharted Pacific. His explorations of the eastern coastline of Australia, leading to its eventual British colonization; his thorough charting of New Zealand, discovery of the Hawaiian Island, and his investigation of both the mythical 'Terra Incognita' in the southern ocean and the equally mythical Northwest Passage, as well as his contributions to cartography and to the cure and prevention of sea disease were all of immense scientific and political significance. Though lacking in formal education, Cook was a man of great intelligence and unbounded curiosity, and his journals reflect a wide-ranging interest in everything from island customs to specific problems of navigation, charting, command, and diplomacy.This reprinting of selections from Cook's journals, edited by A. Grenfell Price, celebrates the bicentennial anniversary of his explorations. It abounds in descriptions of newly discovered plant species, particulars of coastline and land features, details of navigation, and impressions of the various Pacific peoples he encountered. Cook's was a many-faceted genius, able at once to grasp the complexities of mathematics necessary for navigation and mapping and the subtle intricacies of politics and negotiation. He often recorded his keen judgments of both subordinates and native chieftains and priests in a way that displays his own great spirit and humanity. Always solicitous of the health of his crewmen, he took great pains to insure proper diet and conditions of cleanliness, and he carefully described these measures in his journal. His tragic death at the hands of Hawaiian islanders is fully rendered from eyewitness accounts, and the implications of his discoveries to the expansion of scientific knowledge are clearly presented by the editor.Although Cook's journals will prove of inestimable value to historians, anthropologists, and students of the history of science, they can be enjoyed equally as lively narratives of high adventure and discovery. Any sympathetically roving imagination will take unbounded delight in this great classic of exploration by a most "curious and restless son of Earth." ...Show more

The Endeavour Journal of Joseph Banks: Volume I by J. C. Beaglehole (ed.)

$60.00 NZD

Category: Naval | Reading Level: good to very good

The Ship: Retracing Cook's Endeavour Voyage by Simon Baker

$25.00 NZD

Category: Naval | Reading Level: very good

The story of Captain Cook's voyage. Hardback

Captain Cook by Alistair MacLean

$15.00 NZD

Category: Naval | Reading Level: very good

Fitzroy by John and Mary Gribbin

$15.00 NZD

Category: Naval | Reading Level: very good

Admiral FitzRoy was descended from the illegitimate son of King Charles II and made his name as a captain on the HMS Beagle. It was for his second voyage on the ship (1832-36) that he decided to ask Charles Darwin to accompany him, and it was during this time that Darwin began to develop the ideas that would lead him to his theory of evolution. But there was so much more to FitzRoy than this: he was an MP, he was the second Governor of New Zealand from 1843-45 when he made himself unpopular with the settlers by upholding Maori rights, and in 1854 he set up the Meteorological Office so for the first time sailors could know what weather to expect when they set sail. John and Mary Gribbin's portrait of this multi-talented man whose impact on modern life is still felt will fascinate all who read it. ...Show more

Captain James Cook: A Biography by Richard Hough

$20.00 NZD

Category: Naval | Reading Level: very good

James Cook, born in 1728, rose from the lowest ranks of the merchant marine, then through the Royal Navy, to become one of the most celebrated men of his time, the last and the greatest of the romantic navigator/explorers. His voyages to the eastern and western seaboards of North America, the North and South Pacific, the Arctic and the Antarctic, brought a new understanding of the world's geography and of the peoples, flora, and fauna of the lands he discovered. Richard Hough's meticulously researched narrative captures all the excitement of this age of discovery and establishes Cook as a link between the vague scientific speculations of the early eighteenth century and the industrial revolution to come. He pioneered the use of new navigational technology, measuring and recording endlessly, producing maps of unprecedented accuracy. He revolutionized the seaman's diet, all but eliminating scurvy. Always seeking the truth of geography Cook was also an exploder of myths, among them that of the great southern continent imagined by earlier geographers and scientists. ...Show more

Discoveries: The Voyages of Captain Cook by Nicholas Thomas (Professor of Anthropology, Goldsmith's College, University of London)

$30.00 NZD

Category: Naval | Reading Level: very good

Captain James Cook was one of the greatest sea explorers of all time. His epic voyages charted the islands of the Pacific, defined the coasts of New Zealand and eastern Australia, and ventured into both Arctic and Antarctic ice. His men suffered near shipwreck, were ravaged by tropical diseases and surv ived frozen oceans. They did all this not for conquest, but as Nicholas Thomas ...Show more

The Confident Hope of A Miracle: The True Story of The Spanish Armada by Neil Hanson

$12.00 NZD

Category: Naval | Reading Level: very good

'Continual, destruction in the foretop, the pox above board, the plague between decks, hell in the forecastle and the devil at the helm.'It is the summer of 1588, and the fate and future of England hangs in the balance. Obsessed by the dream of reclaiming England for the Catholic Church - and adding ano ther country to his sprawling dominions - Philip II of Spain has assembled a fleet of huge, castle-crowned galleons that stretches for miles across the face of the ocean. In wait in the Netherlands lies a battle-hardened Spanish army, ferocious professionals with a taste for rape, looting and atrocity. Across the Channel the English are scraping together bands of barely trained men, many armed only with scythes, stakes or longbows. Great warning beacons stand all along the coast of England; torches and kindling lie to hand. Watchmen strain their eyes to see over the horizon. Their only hope lies in the English Navy.But Philip's Armada is doomed before it even leaves port. As soon as it engages with the English fleet, its shortcomings are clear in the face of superior tactics and firepower. Its hulls shot through with cannon fire, its men dying in thousands from wounds and disease, the mightiest fleet ever assembled is mercilessly harried into fleeing north, at the mercy of the elements. Over forty Spanish ships are wrecked on the Irish coast; survivors crawling ashore have their throats slit and their purses ransacked. The dream of subduing the Protestant English lies in tatters.A triumphant combination of historical detail and storytelling flair, The Confident Hope of A Miracle draws on undiscovered and little known personal papers and records to tell the epic story of the Spanish Armada in all its scope. No book has ever conveyed in such vivid, living detail how kings, queens and courtiers, sea captains, deckhands and galley slaves, the highest and the lowest in the land, fared in those turbulent months as the fate of England teetered on the brink. ...Show more

The Great Mutiny by James Dugan

$16.00 NZD

Category: Naval | Reading Level: very good