Was Henry Hudson one of the boldest explorers of all time, or was he merely an accidental tourist who stumbled into history? Was he the world's worst ship's captain, master of four failed expeditions, enabler of at least three mutinies, which ultimately led to his own death at the hands of his crew? Was he secretly spying for the British while sailing for the Dutch? In a unique mix of travel essay and historical sleuthing, Corey Sandler tracks down the Henry Hudson that time forgot, giving us a fascinating portrait of a tragic hero in the Age of Discovery. Through the journals and logbooks of the great explorer and his crew, Sandler retraced Hudson's journey during a yearlong, 25,000-mile trek to England, the North Pole, and deep into Canadian wilderness areas accessible only by boat. Illuminating questions that have puzzled historians for four centuries, Henry Hudson: Dreams and Obsession takes us back to a time of bold and harrowing adventure, while searching the present for traces of Henry Hudson in some of the planet's most obscure and mysterious places.
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The surviving records of Henry Hudson's four voyages of 1607-10 are apparently scant but provided enough information to be used in a previous history of his explorations (Donald Johnson's Charting the Sea of Darkness, 1992). Sandler, author of dozens of travel guides, converts the Hudson documentation into a travelogue to several of Hudson's haunts. He traveled somewhat more comfortably than Hudson did, embarking on a cruise ship to Spitzbergen, driving up the Hudson River Valley, and flying to Hudson Bay. Healthily quoting the mariner's logbooks to contrast travel then and now, Sandler also avails himself of the four centuries of history these places have experienced since Hudson sailed by, integrating nuggets of fact with what people have to say about Hudson. Some are quite loquacious on the subject, such as the captain of a replica of Hudson's ship Half Moon. Idiosyncratic, definitely interesting, Sandler will snare the travel/exploration set. Gilbert Taylor
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- PublisherCitadel Pr
- Publication date2008
- ISBN 10 0806528532
- ISBN 13 9780806528533
- BindingPaperback
- Number of pages431
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