What do you think?
Rate this book
Captain Cook's Journal During His First Voyage Round the World
Captain Cook's Journal During His First Voyage Round The World is a historical book written by James Cook, a British explorer and navigator. The book is a personal account of Cook's first voyage around the world, which took place between 1768 and 1771. The journal provides a detailed description of the voyage, including the various stops made along the way, the people and cultures encountered, and the scientific discoveries made during the journey.The book is divided into chapters, each of which covers a specific part of the voyage. Cook's writing is clear and detailed, providing readers with a vivid picture of the journey. The journal also includes maps and illustrations to help readers better understand the places and people encountered during the voyage.Throughout the book, Cook describes his interactions with the indigenous peoples he encountered, including the Maori in New Zealand and the inhabitants of Tahiti. He also writes about the scientific discoveries made during the voyage, including the observation of the transit of Venus and the discovery of new animal and plant species.Overall, Captain Cook's Journal During His First Voyage Round The World is an important historical document that provides readers with a fascinating insight into the life and work of one of the greatest explorers of all time.This scarce antiquarian book is a facsimile reprint of the old original and may contain some imperfections such as library marks and notations. Because we believe this work is culturally important, we have made it available as part of our commitment for protecting, preserving, and promoting the world's literature in affordable, high quality, modern editions, that are true to their original work.
476 pages, Hardcover
First published September 14, 2009
138 people are currently reading
399 people want to read
Ratings & Reviews
Friends & Following
Create a free account to discover what your friends think of this book!
Community Reviews
Displaying 1 - 13 of 13 reviews
July 31, 2011
Hard to get thru in parts, due to all Cook's notes on tides, winds, and location. Other sections were immensely entertaining,(i.e. when he explores Tahiti, New Zealand, Australia), especially when one considers all the logistics of this voyage. Three years circumnavigating the world, exploring areas unknown to Europeans, keeping his men alive, sailing thru the Great Barrier Reef...all while literally charting these waters. Also so amazing when one considers this was about 220 years ago...and how much has changed in such a relatively short period of time. Amazing insight into an amazingly skilled man.
February 7, 2008
After reading Lt. William Bligh's recounting of his later voyages to the Pacific, and the resulting Mutiny on the Bounty, I took an interest in reading about Captain James Cook's first voyage. It was interesting to see how one expedition literally made preparations from island to island for expeditions to come later, or just to setup a safe harbor with food for other ships passing through the area.
January 17, 2012
Parts of these journals were quite fascinating - the encounters with various native tribes and peoples were the best parts - however much of it is the humdrum of the day to day - weather, longitude, latitude, distance travelled, depth of water etc and really is a slog to go through. Having said this, it was also a fabulous insight into the character of someone like Captain Cook and what drove him to explore.
December 3, 2013
Clearly Cook's Journal was the model for the Star Trek adventures with Captain Kirk. It's all there - the landing parties with the doctor, scientific reporting, encounters and trade with unknown cultures, discovery of Botany Bay, spreading gonorrhea (well maybe not that), and rivalry with the harsh-speaking Dutch who weren't very nice to him. Skim through the navigation and weather reports, and Cook's writing is exciting when it's time for adventure.
March 5, 2016
Useful sections for a pirates and explorers topic - 4*
Scanned this for useful journal entries for my 'Land Ahoy' topic.
I learnt a lot about Captain Cook's life; personally, I found this interesting because he is from the same area as I am.
Scanned this for useful journal entries for my 'Land Ahoy' topic.
I learnt a lot about Captain Cook's life; personally, I found this interesting because he is from the same area as I am.
October 28, 2019
Overall, a good book for the researcher and enthusiast.
Read for personal research
- found this book's contents helpful and inspiring - number rating relates to the book's contribution to my needs.
Read for personal research
- found this book's contents helpful and inspiring - number rating relates to the book's contribution to my needs.
July 6, 2023
Captain Cook's Journal During the First Voyage Round the World
The title gives the overview. The title doesn't tell you how different everything was in 1768 when James Cook left Plymouth to circumnavigate the globe.
Huge parts of the map were unknown even to the sailing nations. Cook discovered various South Pacific Islands and was the first European to navigate and chart New Zealand and Eastern Australia.
National rivalries were fierce. Sea routes were guarded as state secrets. And interfering with another nation's colonial possessions had heavy consequences.
Information traveled very slowly. Because there were so few sea explorers, journals and charts from decades earlier were the only sources of information about far-off lands.
Vitamins and nutrients were unknown. A trip far from land would mean sailors could expect a short and miserable end if they contracted scurvy. Cook would become one of the most influential captains to argue for a better diet at sea, and years later, his hygienic and dietary experiments would influence many others.
Despite Cook's rigor in minimizing scurvy amongst his crew, his sailors dropped like flies after catching Dysentery and Malaria in Batavia. It was a time without modern medicine when something easily prevented or treated today could be fatal.
Class determined destiny for the vast majority of people. Even Cook, who was not upper class, treated gentlemen and commoners very differently.
A rivetting storybook Cook's Journal is not, but it is a primary source document from a time that just precedes our modern world.
If you do follow Cook's voyage, please familiarise yourself with longitude and how to measure it along with other sailing-age navigation terms. Figure out how to enter latitude and longitude coordinates on Google Maps if you don't know how already. Almost every entry includes this navigation information. In Cook's time, it saved lives. He was known as a meticulous navigator.
Besides logging latitude and longitude, weather, and sea depth, Cook wrote about the people he met, from the distrusting Portuguese in Brazil to alcoholic sailors aboard his own ship, to the friendly Pacific Islanders, violent Maoris, and the shy Aborigines of Australia. He even describes the Kangaroo for the first time.
History buffs, those who like biography, and armchair travelers will enjoy Cook's Journal. There may be some easier-to-read, newer versions of it. Ask your local librarian if you want help choosing the best version for you. I got mine from Project Gutenberg. It is not well-adapted to either the modern reader or the Kindle.
The title gives the overview. The title doesn't tell you how different everything was in 1768 when James Cook left Plymouth to circumnavigate the globe.
Huge parts of the map were unknown even to the sailing nations. Cook discovered various South Pacific Islands and was the first European to navigate and chart New Zealand and Eastern Australia.
National rivalries were fierce. Sea routes were guarded as state secrets. And interfering with another nation's colonial possessions had heavy consequences.
Information traveled very slowly. Because there were so few sea explorers, journals and charts from decades earlier were the only sources of information about far-off lands.
Vitamins and nutrients were unknown. A trip far from land would mean sailors could expect a short and miserable end if they contracted scurvy. Cook would become one of the most influential captains to argue for a better diet at sea, and years later, his hygienic and dietary experiments would influence many others.
Despite Cook's rigor in minimizing scurvy amongst his crew, his sailors dropped like flies after catching Dysentery and Malaria in Batavia. It was a time without modern medicine when something easily prevented or treated today could be fatal.
Class determined destiny for the vast majority of people. Even Cook, who was not upper class, treated gentlemen and commoners very differently.
A rivetting storybook Cook's Journal is not, but it is a primary source document from a time that just precedes our modern world.
If you do follow Cook's voyage, please familiarise yourself with longitude and how to measure it along with other sailing-age navigation terms. Figure out how to enter latitude and longitude coordinates on Google Maps if you don't know how already. Almost every entry includes this navigation information. In Cook's time, it saved lives. He was known as a meticulous navigator.
Besides logging latitude and longitude, weather, and sea depth, Cook wrote about the people he met, from the distrusting Portuguese in Brazil to alcoholic sailors aboard his own ship, to the friendly Pacific Islanders, violent Maoris, and the shy Aborigines of Australia. He even describes the Kangaroo for the first time.
History buffs, those who like biography, and armchair travelers will enjoy Cook's Journal. There may be some easier-to-read, newer versions of it. Ask your local librarian if you want help choosing the best version for you. I got mine from Project Gutenberg. It is not well-adapted to either the modern reader or the Kindle.
Read
December 14, 2023I started reading this more or less by accident and it turned out to be a fantastic read! If you’re like me you will just skip the pages where it’s like ‘light breezes from the south east, variation of the azimuth was found to be 3 degrees by observations of the sun and moon’ or whatever… but when they are near land it is a ripping yarn. The journey took them to Rio, then Tierra del Fuego, through the pacific to New Zealand, then on to ‘discover’ the east coast of Australia, then Jakarta and around South Africa back to England in the years 1768-1771. Cook is a very enlightened and perceptive man and descriptions of life on the ship, and interactions with the local people they encounter on a voyage around the world are fascinating. The journal was written during the voyage , but incuded in this particular kindle version were notes written seemingly 120 years later around the 1890s that tragically illustrate the differences of mindset between the enlightened Cook and the revoltingly racist mindset of one colonial mind in a later age regarding indigenous Australians. It’s not a major feature of the book but a very revealing ‘extra’.
March 8, 2023
Insight into the great man
Cook and other explorers have become devils in the eyes of many in the modern world. This journal shares a real insight into many first encounters. Not all go well but for an 18th century man, Cook is pragmatic and open minded.
Only tedious parts are the pages of the days when nothing happens.
Cook and other explorers have become devils in the eyes of many in the modern world. This journal shares a real insight into many first encounters. Not all go well but for an 18th century man, Cook is pragmatic and open minded.
Only tedious parts are the pages of the days when nothing happens.
July 14, 2024
I was very excited to read this book, because who wouldn't want a firsthand account of a circumnavigation of the globe? What I was not prepared for was how abysmally dull it was, including entry after entry giving nothing but longitude and latitude coordinates. Even history buffs will have trouble with this one.
August 28, 2021
This is a great journal, an amazing man who achieved greatness from a poor upbringing. Every time I drive through the village where he was born, it seems almost incredulous that he could have ventured so far around the uncharted seas. He kept everything ship shaped and at no point did any of his crew get scurvy. A true legend.
August 3, 2014
Long but very interesting!
June 21, 2017
I read this book for research in a book that I was writing. What an amazing tale.
Displaying 1 - 13 of 13 reviews