A readable, standard non fiction work by MacLean in the vein of his book on Lawrence of Arabia. Not exceptional , pleasant enough but clearly a work of passion - I think doing these might have stopped him from self destructing and it's weird he never did it again at least to me knowledge. Maybe he ran out of heroes.
MacLean has a great deal of admiration for Cook though tempered with acknowledgement that the colonialisation that followed him was not all positive - though he constantly refers to Cook discovering things. MacLean explains things like boats and routes clearly and contextualises it well.
He can't help the main problem of the book - Cook was dull. Diligent, brave, smart... but he kind of just charted a lot of things. Did it well but there was no personality, no fire, just determination. This is why three are no great films or TV series about Cook. He died interestingly and that's the best thing about the movie.
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