New Book Reexamines Captain James Cook's Final Voyage and Colonial Legacy

American historian Hampton Sides has published a new book, 'Cooks letzte Reise. Die fatalen Folgen eines geheimen Auftrags,' reassessing Captain James Cook's expeditions amid contemporary colonialism debates. The work, published by Mare-Verlag in Hamburg in 2026, draws from years of research into Cook's logs, diaries, and participant accounts, while also incorporating indigenous narratives and anthropological findings. Cook, born to a day laborer, rose to become one of the greatest explorers of his era, undertaking three major voyages between 1768 and 1779. His final journey, beginning in 1776, was an imperial mission under secret orders from the British Admiralty to find the Northwest Passage from the Pacific side, claim land in North America, and establish British agricultural settlements in Polynesia. This mission carried profound geostrategic importance in the European powers' race to divide the world. Sides details Cook's significant personality change during this third voyage, marked by erratic judgment, harsh punishments, and a driven focus on his secret task. The voyage culminated in Cook's death on February 14, 1779, at Kealakekua Bay on Hawaii, following a violent clash with Hawaiian warriors. Sides reconstructs the event, suggesting Cook may have been initially mistaken for the god Lono, and that a series of cultural misunderstandings, including the violation of a sacred religious calendar and the theft of a ship's boat, led to the fatal confrontation. The book positions Cook as an ambivalent figure: an Enlightenment-era explorer who expanded geographical and cultural knowledge, yet also a harbinger of colonialism whose arrivals triggered catastrophic social and economic upheaval across the Pacific, leading to the destruction of indigenous cultures within decades.