The Wide Wide Sea: An Evening with Hampton Sides

Bright Side Bookshop is excited to host Hampton Sides on Monday, June 24th at 6:00pm.

Join regional bestselling author Hampton Sides for a book talk and signing of his new book, The Wide Wide Sea: Imperial Ambition, First Contact and the Fateful Final Voyage of Captain James Cook (Doubleday, April 9th, 2024).

A ticket purchase is required for admission to this event and includes admission for one person and a hardcover copy of The Wide Wide Sea ($35.00 retail price). You may also purchase a plus one ticket for $5 (returned to you as a $5 store voucher).

Preorder before April 9th for 10% off -- don't delay! We expect this event to sell out fast!

Can't make it to the event? If you would like to order a copy of The Wide Wide Sea to have signed by the author and will not be able to attend this event, please place your order through our website. Include the following note: "I would like this book to be signed by the author during his event on June 24th."

ABOUT THE AUTHOR:

HAMPTON SIDES is best-known for his gripping non-fiction adventure stories set in war or depicting epic expeditions of exploration. He is the author of the bestselling narrative histories Ghost Soldiers, Blood and Thunder, Hellhound On His Trail, In the Kingdom of Ice, and On Desperate Ground. His most recent work,The Wide Wide Sea: Imperial Ambition, First Contact and the Fateful Final Voyage of Captain James Cook, will be published in April 2024 from Doubleday. Hampton has been a contributor to Outside, National Geographic, Smithsonian, The New Yorker, The Wall Street Journal, The New York Times, and many other newspapers and magazines. His journalistic work, collected in numerous published anthologies, has been twice nominated for National Magazine Awards for feature writing. A native of Memphis and a Yale graduate, Hampton is a board member of the Society of American Historians and the Author’s Guild, and he was a recent Miller Distinguished Scholar at the Santa Fe Institute. He has been a resident fellow at Yaddo, the MacDowell Colony, the Aspen Institute, the Ucross Foundation, and Stanford University. He has an honorary doctorate in humane letters from Colorado College. Hampton lives in Santa Fe, New Mexico.

ABOUT THE BOOK:

From New York Times bestselling author Hampton Sides, an epic account of the most momentous voyage of the Age of Exploration, which culminated in Captain James Cook’s death in Hawaii, and left a complex and controversial legacy still debated to this day

On July 12th, 1776, Captain James Cook, already lionized as the greatest explorer in British history, set off on his third voyage in his ship the HMS Resolution. Two-and-a-half years later, on a beach on the island of Hawaii, Cook was killed in a conflict with native Hawaiians. How did Cook, who was unique among captains for his respect for Indigenous peoples and cultures, come to that fatal moment?

Hampton Sides’ bravura account of Cook’s last journey both wrestles with Cook’s legacy and provides a thrilling narrative of the titanic efforts and continual danger that characterized exploration in the 1700s. Cook was renowned for his peerless seamanship, his humane leadership, and his dedication to science-–the famed naturalist Joseph Banks accompanied him on his first voyage, and Cook has been called one of the most important figures of the Age of Enlightenment. He was also deeply interested in the native people he encountered. In fact, his stated mission was to return a Tahitian man, Mai, who had become the toast of London, to his home islands. On previous expeditions, Cook mapped huge swaths of the Pacific, including the east coast of Australia, and initiated first European contact with numerous peoples. He treated his crew well, and endeavored to learn about the societies he encountered with curiosity and without judgment.

Yet something was different on this last voyage. Cook became mercurial, resorting to the lash to enforce discipline, and led his two vessels into danger time and again. Uncharacteristically, he ordered violent retaliation for perceived theft on the part of native peoples. This may have had something to do with his secret orders, which were to chart and claim lands before Britain’s imperial rivals could, and to discover the fabled Northwest Passage. Whatever Cook’s intentions, his scientific efforts were the sharp edge of the colonial sword, and the ultimate effects of first contact were catastrophic for Indigenous people around the world. The tensions between Cook’s overt and covert missions came to a head on the shores of Hawaii. His first landing there was harmonious, but when Cook returned after mapping the coast of the Pacific Northwest and Alaska, his exploitative treatment of the Hawaiians led to the fatal encounter.

At once a ferociously-paced story of adventure on the high seas and a searching examination of the complexities and consequences of the Age of Exploration, THE WIDE WIDE SEA is a major work from one of our finest narrative nonfiction writers.

ADDITIONAL DETAILS:

When completing your order, please make sure that you include your complete shipping address, phone number, and email address.

Please contact [email protected] with any questions. We hope you are as excited as we are about this amazing opportunity!

Host or Publisher Bright Side Bookshop