 Word On Books
with Jeremy Fenton
Farther Than Any Man
By Martin Dugard, Published by Allen & Unwin
 For a man who would undeniably help shape the world as we now know it, especially in Australia, it comes as a surprise to learn that James Cook did not lay eyes upon the sea until he was in his teenage years.
Although the then-farm boy may not have had an innate love or fascination with the ocean, he definitely had a passion for rising above his station in life. On the water he saw a daring way to rise considerably above his thus-far poor circumstances.
By a combination of 'ambition, intellect and sheer hardheadedness', Cook learned to be a very proficient sailor before joining the Royal Navy and working his way up the ranks. In 1768 he took command of his destiny and one of history's soon-to-be celebrated ships, Endeavour.
After returning to Britain, in 1771, as the all-conquering hero who had circumnavigated New Zealand and cruised up the East Coast of Australia – or New Holland as it was then called – Cook then took command of Resolution I, followed four years later by Resolution II.
In 1780 disaster struck in Kealekekua Bay in the Hawaiian Islands. The very attributes that had lead Cook to greatness – his obsession with power and his 'legendary kindness to island natives' – had finally become mutually exclusive, bringing about his untimely and painful demise.
Author Martin Dugard is not only a respected sports writer (having previously written Knockdown about the deadly 1998 Sydney to Hobart yacht race), but also co-holds the Around the World Speed Record. His sense of real-life adventure has imparted itself on all aspects of the writing in Farther Than Any Man – his new study of the life of Captain Cook.
Cook wasn't any born-to-the-manor sea Captain of his times; he was a self-made man of fierce determination on some of the greatest adventures anyone had yet undertaken. With one of the Dugard's intentions being to rescue the real man from history's somewhat stuffy version, the description of Cook as a man of action, emotion and intelligence is an apt one.
Central to the author's understanding of the Captain is his view that Cook's desire was to travel farther than any man previously – and after looking at a map showing the routes of his three main voyages, it's not hard to believe he succeeded.
With only a few discordant notes (such as the cringe-worthy comparison of Captain James Cook with Captain James Kirk of Star Trek!), Farther Than Any Man is a great popular work on the rise and fall of one of the tallest figures in European/Australian history and sea-going exploration in general.
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