The author of two critically acclaimed books on Captain Cook, John Robson has now turned his attention to the decade leading up to Cook's famous 1768 expedition to the Pacific. This new book investigates why Cook was chosen to captain Endeavor and how he became uniquely qualified for the exacting tasks of exploration. Displaying much new research, it examines Cook's remarkable seamanship qualities and his surveying, astronomical, and cartographic skills, as well as his actions at the siege of Quebec. Cook scholars and armchair explorers alike will appreciate this important new study.

John Robson, a map librarian at the University of Waikato in New Zealand, is the author of The Captain Cook Encyclopaedia and Captain Cook's World.