Captain Cook in the Pacific

James Cook was the greatest explorer of his age. Between 1768 and his death on Hawaii in 1779 he made three great Pacific voyages that had the same effect on his generation's view of the world as space exploration has had on ours. Born in 1723, son of a Yorkshire farm-worker, he rose from apprentice in the East Coast coal trade to be a skilled marine surveyor, Royal Naval captain and Fellow of the Royal Society.
Voyaging over then unknown seas from the Antarctic to Alaska, he discovered the east coast of New Zealand and Australia, most of the islands of the central Pacific and charted all he found with extraordinary accuracy and completeness. His voyages were also unprecedented for the health and well-being he maintained among his men.
The National Maritime Museum holds one of the world's great Cook collections and this account of his voyages, including their scientific and artistic aspects, draws on them to tell the story of man of whom it has been said, 'his competence changed the face of the world'.