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THE DEATH OF CAPTAIN COOK: A HERO MADE AND UNMADE. By Glyn Williams. Harvard University Press. 208 pages, $19.95
Reviewed by Tom Carter

More than 600 years ago, the English poet Geoffrey Chaucer explored the vagaries of a person’s reputation in his dream-vision “The House of Fame.” As one of the more remarkable images in this poem filled with baffling details (many of which – such as the twirling, twiggy House of Rumor – make the reader wonder just what sort of mushroom went into the poet’s beloved eglantine sauce), Chaucer gives us a House of Fame made of ice. The names written in shadow endure; those exposed to the sun melt away.
I have often wondered whether one of the ideas Chaucer is playing with is that lasting fame requires a bit of ignorance – too much knowledge erodes a person’s reputation.

Certainly we have seen how additional information has eroded the character of legendary figures of history, literature and art. Thomas Jefferson apparently fathered children by one of his slaves. Sir Arthur Conan Doyle was duped by the Cottingley fairy photographs. Pete Seeger popularized “Kumbaya.”
Just such a transit of the gloria mundi gets full treatment in this book about the famous explorer Capt. James Cook. Glyn Williams gives us the full, well, Cook’s tour of not the man himself but of what happened to his story after he died. As the book’s subtitle indicates, Williams describes how Cook transitions from being one of the greatest heroes of the Enlightenment to being a hated symbol of colonialism and European racism, although Australia and New Zealand claim him (rather inexplicably, Williams argues) as a founding father.

The worm in Cook’s reputation feeds on certain ambiguities surrounding his death at the hands of Hawaiian Islanders on Feb. 14, 1779.  The basic facts are well known: Cook, angered at the theft of a boat, confronted the local chief concerning its return. As the situation escalated, Cook shot and killed one of the Hawaiians, triggering a general fight in which he and several of the Marines with him were clubbed and stabbed to death. His complete body was never recovered; the islanders cremated and dismembered him according to their customs for the burial of a beloved chief (and giving rise to the disrespectful ditty “Cook was the captain, and the captain was cooked,” although Williams entertains no rumors of cannibalism.)
The ambiguities fog up the events of the several weeks leading up to his death. Why did the islanders treat him with such reverence during the first part of his visit? Why did Cook, a representative of a Christian nation, accept their reverence? What drove Cook to his final homicidal rage? Given the times and circumstances, the precise story is irrecoverable.
Of course, rich ambiguities invite subsequent historians to craft and skew the story into whichever direction they choose.  Williams spends the bulk of his book charting out those navigational choices.
The basic evolution of Cook’s reputation is fairly predictable. First come the “eyewitness” adventure stories, written by people claiming to be sailors who were part of the expedition. The British government took several years to release the official account of the voyage, delayed by having to wait for the logbooks and reports to return from the Pacific, the time to sift through the information, and time to edit the raw information into a book.
At that point, Cook’s reputation was at its highest, a welcome bright spot amid the worsening news coming from the revolting colonies. Even France, then at war with England, accepted Cook as a hero of the Enlightenment, an explorer who values knowledge over conquest. But that high tide soon began to ebb as the wars with France continued and the status of exalted hero shifted from Cook to Nelson. Now, Cook’s reputation belonged to the ravages of the ages.
 During the 19th century, Cook’s story suffered at the hands of Americans and missionaries. As Americans expanded west and into the Pacific and began tightening its ties to Hawaii, Cook became the lightning rod for lingering anti-British sentiments. And the missionaries focused on Cook’s acceptance of the islanders’ reverence and hinted that he had been struck down by the hand of God.
Thus things progress on into the post-colonial period, when Cook becomes the personification of Europe’s disdain of indigenous cultures. In fact, Cook was burned again (this time in effigy) during bicentennial celebrations of Cook’s discoveries and “founding” of Australia and New Zealand.
Through these accounts, Williams gives us a brilliant case study of human memory and the fashions of historiography. The insights to be gleaned from this book don’t pertain to Cook or to his specific reputation, but to what we’re willing to accept as history. In the end, contemporary humans are just as much in the business of creating myths as the ancient peoples sitting around the tribal campfires.
“The Death of Captain Cook” is not an adventure story, but it is an adventurous read for people who like to think about human nature.