#1641 Author, Hampton Sides on Captain James Cook’s Amazing Third Voyage

Listening to America

History, Politics, Unitedstates, Society & Culture, American

4.6 • 1.1K Ratings

🗓️ 4 March 2025

⏱️ 56 minutes

🔗️ Recording | iTunes | RSS

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Summary

Clay interviews Hampton Sides, the author of a dozen outstanding books, including studies of Kit Carson, Martin Luther King’s assassin James Earl Ray, the Battle of Chosin Reservoir in Korea, and most recently, The Wide, Wide Sea, Sides’ study of the third and fatal voyage of Captain James Cook. How does one write about a British explorer like James Cook in the 21st century when Cook’s statues around the world are being defaced, decapitated, or torn down due to his role in disrupting the indigenous cultures he encountered in his voyages? Sides talks about his strategy of coming down somewhere in the middle on this cultural and political question. He takes comfort in that his book, The Wide, Wide Sea,has been criticized from both ends of the political spectrum. We talk, too, about his forthcoming book about the Sand Creek Massacre in eastern Colorado on November 29, 1864.

Transcript

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0:00.0	Welcome to this introduction to this week's podcast, listening to America.
0:06.2	My interview with Hampton Sides.
0:08.0	My second interview with Hampton Sides.
0:09.7	You probably know his work, The Wide Wide Sea, as his recent book about Captain James Cook,
0:14.9	The Third and Fatal Voyage, Blood and Thunder, an epic of the American West about Kit Carson,
0:20.2	on desperate ground, the Marines
0:23.1	at the reservoir, the extraordinary battle in the Korean War, Hellhound on the trail of the story
0:30.9	of the attempt to find James Earl Ray after he killed Martin Luther King, if he alone killed Martin Luther King, and more.
0:40.7	This is really an amazing historian.
0:43.2	He's also somebody that I know through my friendship with David McCandry.
0:47.6	And McCandry, as you know, has written a number of books about Lewis and Hark,
0:51.7	but his most recent book was Captain Cook about
0:55.3	Captain Cook and the Third Voyage.
0:56.6	And he and Hampton Side's disagree.
0:58.2	I'm hoping to get them both on this program one of these days, but I don't want the debate
1:02.0	to be too in the weeds or for that matter acrimonious.
1:06.7	So the big question about the Third Voy voyage is, was Captain Cook impaired?
1:12.6	Was he mentally ill?
1:14.7	Was he physically ill?
1:16.9	Had he run out of patience?
1:18.7	Was he erratic?
1:19.7	Was there something wrong with him that can be pinpointed?
	...

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