James Cook's three epic journey's in the eighteenth century were the last great voyages of discovery. When he embarked for the Pacific in 1768, a third of the globe remained blank. By the time he died in 1779, Cook had explored more of the earth's surface than anyone in history. Adventuring in the captain's wake, Tony Horwitz relives his journeys and explores their legacy. He recaptures the rum-and-lash world of eighteenth century seafaring gang members, and the king of Tonga. Accompanied by a carousing Australian mate, he meets Miss Tahiti, visits the roughest bar in Alaska, and uncovers the secret behind the red-toothed warriors of Savage Island.
Throughout, Horwitz also searches for Cook the man: a restless prodigy who fled his peasant boyhood, and later the luxury of Georgian London, for the privation and peril of sailing off the edge of the map.