Blue Latitudes

Two Centuries After James Cook's Epic Voyages of Discovery, Tony Horwitz takes readers on a wild ride across hemispheres and centuries to recapture the captain's adventures and explore his embattled legacy in today's Pacific. Horwitz, a Pulitzer Prize -- winning journalist, works as a sailor aboard a replica of Cook's ship, meets island kings and beauty queens, and carouses the South Seas with a hilarious and disgraceful travel companion, an Aussie named Roger. He also creates a brilliant portrait of Cook: an impoverished farmboy who became the greatest navigator in British history and forever changed the lands he touched. Poignant, probing, antic, and exhilarating, Blue Latitudes brings to life a man who helped create the global village we inhabit today. Book jacket.