Into the Blue. Boldly going where Captain Cook has gone before

Captain James Cook's three epic journeys between in the eighteenth century were the last great voyages of discovery. His ships sailed some 150,000 miles, from the Arctic to the Antarctic, from Tasmania to Oregon, From Easter Island to Siberia. Before Cook set off for the Pacific in 1768, one third of the globe remained blank. By the time of his violent death in Hawaii in 1779, there was little left to discover and the map of the world was substantially complete.
Tony Horwitz vividly recounts Cook's voyages and the exotic scenes he encountered: tropical orgies, taboo rituals human sacrifice, hip-throbbing Tahitian dancers, New Zealand cannibals, Hawaiian surfers and Australian Aborigines sealed off from the rest of the world for thousands of years.He also explores Cook the man: an impoverished farmboy who broke through the barriers of his class and time to become the greatest navigator in history.

Also titled Blue Latitudes.