James Cook never laid eyes on the sea until he was in his teens. He then began an extraordinary rise from farm-boy to the hallowed rank of captain of the Royal Navy, leading three historic journeys that would forever link his name with fearless exploration. In Farther Than Any Man, noted modern day adventurer Martin Dugard strips away the myth of Cook to reveal a complex, conflicted man of tremendous ambition, intellect and sheer hardheadedness.

When Great Britain announced a major circumnavigation in 1768 it came as a political surprise that James Cook was given command. No commoner had ever commanded a Royal Navy vessel. Endeavour's stunning three-year journey changed the face of modern exploration; charting the vast Pacific waters, the eastern coasts of New Zealand and Australia, and making landfall in Tahiti, Tierra del Fuego and Rio de Janeiro.

Returning home a hero, Cook yearned to get back to sea. He soon took control of the Resolution and returned to his beloved Pacific in search of the elusive Southern Continent. It was on this trip that Cook's taste for power became an obsession, and his legendary kindness to island natives became an expectation of worship-traits that would lead him first to greatness, and finally to catastrophe.

Martin Dugard is one of today s foremost adventure writers. He is the author of the bestselling account of the ill-fated 1998 Sydney to Hobart Race, Knockdown and writes for GQ, Sports Illustrated and Esquire.