Endeavour: The Ship and the Attitude that Changed the World

THE SUNDAY TIMES BESTSELLER. An inventive biography of one of the most famous ships of all time – an alluring combination of history, adventure and science. ‘HISTORY BOOK OF THE YEAR’ Christopher Hart, Sunday Times The Enlightenment was an age of endeavours. Britain was consumed by the impulse for grand projects. In 1768 the Royal Navy bought a Whitby collier for an expedition to the South Seas. No one could have guessed she would become the most significant ship in the history of British exploration. Her name was Endeavour. Endeavour was a ship with many lives, famously carrying James Cook on his first great voyage to the Pacific islands. She was there at the Wilkes Riots in London and witnessed the bloody birth of the United States. A Polynesian priest, botanists, the first kangaroo to arrive in Britain and Hessian soldiers were just a few amongst her many passengers. According to Charles Darwin, she helped Cook add a hemisphere to the civilised world. NASA named a space shuttle after her. Yet to others, she was a toxic symbol, responsible for the dispossession and disruption of societies. For the first time, Peter Moore tells Endeavour’s complete story, exploring the different lives of this remarkable ship -- from the oak that made her to her rich and complex legacy. ‘Fascinating and richly detailed... Peter Moore has brought us an acute insight into the ship that carried some of the most successful explorers across the world. A fine book that’s definitely worth exploring’ Michael Palin

About the Author :
Peter Moore is a writer, journalist and lecturer. He teaches creative writing at the University of Oxford. His debut, Damn His Blood, reconstructed a rural murder in 1806. His second, The Weather Experiment, traced early efforts to forecast the weather. His latest book, Endeavour, was a multiple book of the year and a Sunday Times bestseller. He presents a history podcast called Travels Through Time.

Review :
Mr Moore is a dazzling new arrival: a witty, intelligent and hugely entertaining writer A joy of a biography, offering up a blizzard of maritime and political fascinations... Moore has written a book that makes the case for his little ship both compelling and irrefutable Moore uses Endeavour as a window to the age of enlightenment. Like the period it recounts, this book has enormous energy, creativity and self-confidence. It's a feast of endless exotic dishes, all delivered with immense style Beautifully constructed, his book is not just the history of a single vessel, but a window into the intellectual and political life of the age of enlightenment, from the thrill of botanical discovery to the horror of Cook's last moments on the beaches of Hawaii A dazzling combination of science and adventure, lyrically evocative descriptions of lush tropical landscapes and salt-stung seascapes, and a portrait of an age…an absolute joy from start to finish, and surely my history book of the year Fascinating and richly detailed... Peter Moore has brought us an acute insight into the ship that carried some of the most successful explorers across the world. A fine book that’s definitely worth exploring Endeavour is an extraordinary book about an unlikely ship that defined an age... Like the age it recounts, it is a book of energy, creativity and self-confidence Pays brilliant tribute to what was arguably the most significant ship in the history of British exploration Bold and imaginative... the same brave wind that filled Endeavour's sails blows through this book and it is hard to resist Moore’s richly detailed book is an engrossing love letter to a work, an attitude and a ship: it is an endeavour that honours Endeavour, without denying the death and destruction that followed in her wake Moore’s approach is lavishly digressive… A rollicking yarn Endeavour was more than merely the first English vessel to reach New Zealand and Australia's east coast. She was also a floating laboratory, a vast seed-bank and an international observatory...the spirit of Enlightenment under sail Peter Moore’s elegant and entertaining new book offers us a fascinating biography of the Endeavour, using it as a window onto the broader world of the mid-18th-century English Enlightenment...a deeply satisfying book. It represents an intelligent, diverse, fresh and challenging approach to writing the history of exploration This narrative of the ship commanded by Captain Cook is illuminated by imagination and creativity. Particularly brilliant is the depiction of its context in 18th-century Britain, where the culture of intellectual enquiry we know as the Enlightenment prompted the Admiralty to support Cook, and he was accompanied by botanists, astrologers, artists and cartographers What a truly remarkable book this is…entirely fresh and original…shows how this stalwart, unpretentious, little coal bark came to embody the Age of Exploration, of Enlightenment, of Empire, and of Revolution [An] extraordinary story… [and] a fascinating period of history Endeavour’s… story… [will] rarely be more engagingly recorded than here Engrossing detail… written in an engaging literary style… [a] fine book