As the longest-serving president of Britain's Royal Society, Banks was perhaps the most important man in the scientific world for more than half a century. He returned with thousands of specimens of plants and animals, generating enormous interest in Europe, while the racy accounts of his amorous adventures in Tahiti made him one of the most famous and notorious men in England. Financing his own team of scientists and artists, Banks battled high seas, hailstorms, treacherous coral reefs and hostile locals to expand the world's knowledge of life on distant shores. In 1768, as a gallivanting young playboy, he joined Captain James Cook's Endeavour expedition to the South Pacific. Fabulously wealthy, Banks was the driving force behind monumental voyages and scientific discoveries in Australia, New Zealand, the South Pacific, Europe, North America, South America, Asia, Africa and the Arctic. A fearless adventurer, his fascination with beautiful women was only trumped by his obsession with the natural world and his lust for scientific knowledge. But generally, Patrick Harvey was a good narrator of the story.Lust, science, adventure - Joseph Banks and his voyages of discovery The extraordinary life of one of the world's most famous and notorious adventurers Sir Joseph Banks was a man of passion whose influence spanned the globe. If they are wrong, they lessen our trust in the narrator. Is there no producer present to make sure the narrator gets these things right? - surely it would be easy, with search engines, to say place names properly. The narrator made quite a few howlers in pronunciation. I would recommend this book to anyone interested in Australian and British history. I found the non-Cook sections, before and after the voyages, more interesting, and they certainly showed what a major figure Banks was, not only in science but in public affairs generally, and as a wealthy benefactor for many people and organizations. It was not quite as interesting as the others because I knew so much about Captain Cook's voyages, and Banks' important part in them - but all that had to be told of course. I have enjoyed two other biographies by Grantley Kieza, those of Macquarie and Paterson, and this one is of the same high standard.
0 kommentar(er)
