Captain Cook and other things
Captain Cook and other things
It’s a sign that we’re settling into our new place that we hosted a Seder for family from both sides and friends. What a lovely way to inaugurate our new digs! I’m feeling so grateful.
It’s our tradition to read from a wide range of sources during our Seder, including Dr. King and poet activist Marge Piercy.
This year, we also read from a piece by Rabbi Shai Held: [W]hen we retell the Exodus story, we must remember its implications: Since we know vulnerability, the plight of the vulnerable — whether among our own kin or among those who do not look or pray or speak like us — makes an especially forceful claim on us. The commandment to do this work is both individual and communal…
Here’s my new book review in the Washington Post about Captain Cook’s third and final voyage: Hampton Sides’s THE WIDE WIDE SEA. This book is terrific. Sides is a magnificent story teller; he does not skirt the rapacious appetites of the British and other European monarchies. The magic of this book, however, is in the details of the explorer’s life at sea. The lack of knowledge and level of danger Cook faced on his voyages seems way more risky than modern day space travel.
I’m getting excited about my gig with the Swans of Harlem. Please join us if you can. If you live elsewhere, you can join the live-stream here.
Wishing you all the best.
Love, Martha
P.S. ICYMI here’s last week’s newsletter: Celebrating Regal House, and a new interview.
Thank you for the review. I've been interested in Captain Cook and the three great voyages for as long as I can remember. It's exciting to find a new perspective and one that tries to reconcile the adulators with the detractors.
I immediately put the book on hold at my library. There are only 24 people ahead of me! But the library does have 6 copies.
And, yes those voyages were far more dangerous than space travel is now. When you went you stood a high chance of not returning.
I'm re-reading The Brother Gardeners by Andrea Wulf at the moment, to review it for my own newsletter. It has a fascinating section on Joseph Banks and Cook's first voyage, which also had a dual purpose - observe the transit of Venus as part of an international scientific project and, secretly, check out rumors of Terra Australis and nab it for the British Empire. The navy financed and fitted out those voyages. The government wasn't putting in all that money out of the goodness of its heart.