Bud Werner Library presents a free evening with New York Times bestselling author Hampton Sides discussing his new book, “The Wide Wide Sea: Imperial Ambition, First Contact and the Fateful Final Voyage of Captain James Cook,” at 7 p.m. Wednesday in Library Hall.
The nonfiction story is an epic account which culminated in Captain Cook’s death in Hawaii, and left a complex and controversial legacy still debated to this day. On July 12, 1776, Cook, already lionized as the greatest explorer in British history, set off on his third voyage in his ship, the HMS Resolution. Two-and-a-half years later, on a beach on the island of Hawaii, Cook was killed in a conflict with native Hawaiians.
Sides is best-known for his gripping nonfiction adventure stories set in war or depicting epic expeditions of exploration. He is the author of the bestselling narrative histories “Ghost Soldiers,” “Blood and Thunder,” “Hellhound On His Trail,” “In the Kingdom of Ice” and “On Desperate Ground.”
