Captain James Cook by Nathaniel Dance-Holland, 1776
The three voyages of maritime exploration undertaken by Captain James Cook from 1768 to 1779 were filled with high drama, tragedy, intrigue, and humor, and their stories have been retold for centuries. Justin M. Jacobs, professor of history at American University, investigates their enduring appeal by pairing the latest scholarly insights with extensive visual resources focusing on the people, places, and events of the voyages.
Jacobs places Cook and his world in historical context, highlights his substantive connections with the Polynesian world, examines his search for the “Great Southern Continent” and Northwest Passage, and analyzes social and political relationships both on board the ships and with the people of the many shores that were visited.
March 18 The Polynesian Dispersal
Long before the arrival of European explorers, an intrepid seafaring people discovered and settled nearly every inhabitable island throughout the Pacific Ocean, from New Zealand to Easter Island and Hawaii. Jacobs examines how, why, and when Polynesian navigators ventured out into the forbidding seas to find new lands. He also looks at how their societies developed differently on different islands while retaining cultural and linguistic similarities.
March 25 Cook’s First Voyage
In 1768, an unknown British lieutenant named James Cook set off on a daunting maritime expedition around the world. By the time it was over, Cook had observed the transit of Venus in newly rediscovered Tahiti, charted the coastlines of New Zealand, re-established contact with isolated Polynesian societies, and survived a near shipwreck on the Great Barrier Reef off the eastern coast of Australia. Jacobs revisits one of the most famous maritime voyages in history to place the events of Cook’s first expedition in proper historical perspective.
April 1 The Second Voyage
With the fame brought about by the successful completion of his first voyage, Cook was now charged with solving one of the greatest scientific mysteries of the day. In 1772, he set off to sail further south than any man had done before to determine if a “Great Southern Continent” really existed. Cook also spent considerable time in the Polynesian Triangle from Easter Island to Tonga, inaugurating a new age of Western colonialism in the Pacific.
April 8 The Third Voyage
In the summer of 1776, James Cook was brought out of retirement to conduct a third and last circumnavigation of the globe. The goal was to prove or disprove the possibility of a long-sought Northwest Passage across the frigid Arctic seas atop North America. Before the voyage was over, Cook had solved the riddle of the passage, rediscovered the Hawaiian archipelago, and provided the first detailed charts of the Pacific Northwestern coastline before meeting his controversial end in Kealakekua Bay.
April 15 Mutiny on the Bounty
In 1789, under the direction of the infamous Captain William Bligh, the HMS Bounty was tasked with delivering breadfruit from Tahiti to British plantations in the Caribbean. Instead, Bligh was tied up by his crew and set adrift with 18 loyal seamen in an open boat in the middle of the South Pacific. Jacobs provides a fresh perspective on the mutiny by placing it in historical context, examining the fates of all its participants, and highlighting continuities with Cook’s voyages one decade earlier.
5 sessions
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