"A lot of things started going wrong from the very beginning," historian Hampton Sides says of Cook's last voyage, which ended in the British explorer's violent death on the island of Hawaii in 1779. His book is The Wide Wide Sea: Imperial Ambition, First Contact, and the Fateful Final Voyage of Captain James Cook. Ken Tucker reviews Beyoncé's album Cowboy Carter. Learn more about sponsor message choices: podcastchoices.com/adchoices NPR Privacy Policy
On the Ted radio hour, linguist Ann.
Curzan says she gets a lot of complaints about people using the pronoun they to refer to one person.
I sometimes get into arguments with people where they will say to me, but it can't be singular.
And I will say, but it is.
The history behind words causing a lot of debate.
That's on the Ted radio hour from NPR.
This is FRESH AIR.
I'm Dave Davies.
You may remember the story of the Apollo 13 mission to the moon, when an explosion in the spacecraft of three astronauts forced them to summon the courage, focus and ingenuity to rescue the situation and return home safely.
That story came to me often as I read the latest book by our guest historian, Hampton sides.
It's about an 18th century sea voyage around the world led by Captain James Cook, an explorer so accomplished that in the 1770s, his was a household name in England.
Seid's book is an account of what it took for a ship full of men to sail for months in uncharted waters with only what they had on board to survive, how they coped with hunger, thirst, disease and weather so fierce it could snap a ship's mast in two and still found ways to keep going.
It's a tale of fearless exploration which greatly expanded our understanding of the world's geography.
And it's a story of remarkable encounters with indigenous people, some of whom had never seen Europeans before.
All such encounters were unique and most friendly, but one rooted in deep cultural gaps and misunderstandings would lead to a tragic outcome remembered for centuries.
Hampton Sides is a contributing editor to Outside magazine and a historian who's written five previous books on subjects ranging from the exploration of the american west to the Korean War.
His latest is the wide, wide sea, imperial ambition, first contact, and the fateful final voyage of Captain James Cook.
Hampton sides, welcome back to Fresh Air.
Yeah, it's a real pleasure to be back with you.
Let's just begin by giving you a bit of a thumbnail profile of James Cook.