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Voyages of James Cook

Melvyn Bragg and guests discuss the science behind Capt James Cook's three voyages of discovery, from 1768 to 1779, one of over a thousand ideas suggested by listeners.

Melvyn Bragg and guests discuss the scientific advances made in the three voyages of Captain James Cook, from 1768 to 1779. Cook's voyages astonished Europeans, bringing back detailed knowledge of the Pacific and its people, from the Antarctic to the Bering Straits. This topic is one of more than a thousand different ideas suggested by listeners in October and came from Alysoun Hodges in the UK, Fiachra O'Brolchain in Ireland, Mhairi Mackay in New Zealand, Enzo Vozzo in Australia, Jeff Radford in British Columbia and Mark Green in Alaska.

With

Simon Schaffer
Professor of the History of Science at the University of Cambridge

Rebekah Higgitt
Lecturer in the History of Science at the University of Kent

And

Sophie Forgan
Retired Principle Lecturer at the University of Teesside
Chairman of Trustees of the Captain Cook Museum, Whitby

Producer: Simon Tillotson.

Available now

43 minutes

Last on

Thu 3 Dec 2015 21:30
BBC Radio 4

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LINKS AND FURTHER READING

Simon Schaffer at the University of Cambridge

Rebekah Higgitt at the University of Kent

Captain Cook Memorial Museum, Whitby

Board of Longitude - Cambridge Digital Library

James Cook - Wikipedia

 

READING LIST:

J. C. Beaglehole, The Life of Captain James Cook (Stanford University Press, 1974)

Captain James Cook (ed. Philip Edwards), The Journals of Captain Cook (Penguin Classics, 1999)

Richard Dunn and Rebekah Higgitt, Finding Longitude: How clocks and stars helped solve the longitude problem (Collins, 2014)

Patricia Fara, Sex, Botany and Empire: The Story of Carl Linnaeus and Joseph Banks (Icon Books Ltd, 2003)

John Gascoigne, Captain Cook: Voyager Between Worlds (Hambledon Continuum, 2007)

Rebekah Higgitt, Maskelyne: Astronomer Royal (Robert Hale Ltd, 2014)

Anne Salmond, The Trial of the Cannibal Dog: Captain Cook in the South Seas (Allen Lane, 2003)

Nicholas Thomas, Discoveries: the Voyages of Captain Cook (Allen Lane, 2003)

Jenny Uglow, Lunar Men: The Friends Who Made the Future (Faber and Faber, 2002)

Glyn Williams (ed), Captain Cook: Explorations and Reassessments (Boydell Press, 2004)

Glyn Williams, Naturalists at Sea: From Dampier to Darwin (Yale University Press, 2013)

Andrea Wulf, Chasing Venus: The Race to Measure the Heavens (Knopf Publishing Group, 2012)

Credits

Presenter Melvyn Bragg
Producer Simon Tillotson
Interviewed Guest Simon Schaffer
Interviewed Guest Rebekah Higgitt
Interviewed Guest Sophie Forgan

Broadcasts

  • Thu 3 Dec 2015 09:00
    BBC Radio 4
  • Thu 3 Dec 2015 21:30
    BBC Radio 4

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