Captain James Cook’s voyages in the South Pacific in the late 1700s exemplify the law of unintended consequences. He set out to find a westward ocean passage from Europe to Asia but instead, with the maps he created and his reports, Cook revealed the Pacific islands and their people to the world. In recent decades, Cook has been vilified by some scholars and cultural revisionists for bringing European diseases, guns and colonization. But Hampton Sides’ new book, “The Wide Wide Sea: Imperial Ambition, First Contact and the Fateful Final Voyage of Captain James Cook,” details that Polynesian island life and cultures were not always idyllic. Priests sometimes made human sacrifices. Warriors mutilated enemy corpses. People defeated in battle sometimes were enslaved. King Kamehameha, a revered figure in Hawaii, unified the Hawaiian Islands in 1810 at a cost of thousands of warriors’ lives. |
Revealed: The countries with the highest levels of cybercrime in the worldChildren addicted to tech including smartphones are more at risk of psychosis, study suggestsLondon restaurant transforms into Charlie and the Chocolate factoryPodcast pick: The best audio show to listen to nowHow I kept my Easter under £10 by buying no eggs and using yearHannah Elizabeth puts on a busty display in an offPodcast pick: The best audio show to listen to nowMcDonald's is dishing out Chicken McNuggets at a discounted priceI found BUGS wriggling in my Sainsbury's risotto riceMore than 200 US chemical plants must reduce toxic emissions under new EPA rule