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The Captain Cook Encyclopaedia, written and edited by John Robson. London: Chatham Publishing, 2,004. ISBN 1-86176-225-9; 288 pages, figures, maps, appendixes, bibliography, index. US$49-95.
The Captain Cook Encyclopaedia, edited and largely written by John Robson, is an attractive, well-illustrated guide to the life and voyages of Captain James Cook. The book is also connected to a Web site that offers some additional, but currently limited, information and links: <http: //www.captaincookencyclopaedia .com> (note the English spelling). It is written for a general readership and would be accessible to readers who have little knowledge of Cook's voyages.
Up until the publication of this encyclopedia, the best reference source on Cook was the index in J C Beaglehole's monumental Life of Captain Cook (1974). The biography still has a greater number of entries and sometimes a more comprehensive discussion, but the encyclopedia is better organized as a reference work and has some more up-to-date entries, such as a half-page discussion of "Endeavour replica," a half-page discussion of the "Captain Cook Society (ces)," and other entries that talk about portraits, stained glass, and stamps. While Beaglehole focuses on Cook's biography, the encyclopedia also considers Cook as a historical and cultural icon, which is often more interesting than the details of the voyages themselves.
The appendixes to the encyclopedia are also very useful. In addition to lists of books and logs, there is an appendix that lists relevant libraries, archives, and museums, giving their addresses and Web sites; a list of the crew, with some biographical information; and a gazetteer of places named after Cook and his crew (although this does not include things such as streets).
The trivia embedded in the encyclopedia makes Cook, his voyages, and his subsequent mythological presence fascinating.
Evaluating an encyclopedia, however, is different from evaluating a regular book. Most books make arguments or narrate events, but an encyclopedia is supposed to offer a sense of an entire subject. With an encyclopedia, it is not the coherence of the narrative or the argument that matters. What are important, instead, are the comprehensiveness, the arrangement, and the depth of the topics discussed. Thus, while it is often unfair to criticize a book for failing to...