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Chapters: James Cook, Henry Hudson, George Vancouver, Francis Drake, Richard Francis Burton, Robert Falcon Scott, Walter Raleigh, David Thompson, Martin Frobisher, Ernest Giles, Francis Galton, Thomas Cavendish, William Baffin, Samuel Baker, John Byron, John Smith, Valentine Baker, Joseph Billings, Henry Walter Bates, Charles Waterton, Clements Markham, George Mallory, Joseph Dalton Hooker, Hesketh Hesketh-Prichard, Frederick Selous, Christopher Levett, James Colnett, John Franklin, Bear Grylls, Gertrude Bell, Humphrey Gilbert, Matthew Flinders, St. John Philby, Edward L. Atkinson, Albert Hastings Markham, Ranulph Fiennes, John Oxley, Percy Fawcett, Simon Reeve, Lawrence Oates, Leonard Hussey, William Dampier, Frederick Lugard, 1st Baron Lugard, Charles Sturt, Michael Asher, Francis Howard Bickerton, William Dawes, Mary Kingsley, John Angelo Jackson, Andrew Irvine, St. George Littledale, Robert Swan, John Rolfe, Samuel Hearne, Eric Shipton, Allan Cunningham, Bill Tilman, John Meares, Ben Fogle, George Dixon, Thomas Doughty, David Carnegie, Cecil Rawling, Daniel Byles, Edward Whymper, Anthony de La Roché, Apsley Cherry-Garrard, Constantine Phipps, 2nd Baron Mulgrave, Jerome Horsey, Harry Johnston, Edward Adrian Wilson, John Ratcliffe, William Moorcroft, Frank Wild, Kenneth Gandar-Dower, Edward Evans, 1st Baron Mountevans, Lawrence Wager, William Parker Snow, Richard Grenville, Victor Hayward, Bruce Parry, William Scoresby, Frank Smythe, Julius Beerbohm, Douglas Botting, Nicholas Woodcock, James Clark Ross, Edward John Eyre, Charley Boorman, Bartholomew Gosnold, George French Angas, John Davis, William Hovell, Sherard Osborn, Charles William Barkley, Ben Saunders, F. A. Mitchell-Hedges, William Weston, John Vincent, Ernest Wild, Ed Stafford, Tarka L'herpiniere, William John Bankes, Wally Herbert, Thomas Edge, Vivian Fuchs, Thomas Baines, Joseph Burke Ii, Bartholomew Gilbert, Alfred Maudslay, Richard Spruce, Ralph Fitch, George ...More: http://booksllc.net/?id=66655 ... Read more

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Chapters: Samuel de Champlain, Henry Hudson, Abel Tasman, Robert Bylot, William Baffin, John Smith, Jacob le Maire, Christopher Levett, Bento de Góis, Pieter Nuyts, René-Robert Cavelier, Sieur de La Salle, Pedro Fernandes de Queirós, Semyon Dezhnyov, Willem Janszoon, Jonas Poole, Nicholas Woodcock, Adriaen Block, Robert Fotherby, Joris Carolus, Bartholomew Gosnold, Jens Munk, Jacques L'hermite, Thomas Edge, Isaq Schrijver, Étienne Brûlé, Maarten Gerritsz Vries, Dirk Hartog, Reijnjer Van Tzum, Thomas Marmaduke, Willem Schouten, Pedro Teixeira, Jean Nicolet, Fedot Alekseyev Popov, Hendrik Brouwer, Estêvão Cacella, Willem de Vlamingh, Frederick de Houtman, Matthijs Quast, António de Andrade, António Raposo Tavares, Jan Jacobs May Van Schellinkhout, Domingos Jorge Velho, François Thijssen, Jan Carstenszoon, Steven Bennet, Lionel Wafer, Nicolás de Cardona, Abraham Blauvelt, John Cunningham, Luke Fox, Joris Van Spilbergen, James Hall, Hendrick Christiaensen, David Melgueiro, Baltazar Fernandes. Source: Wikipedia. Pages: 249. Not illustrated. Free updates online. Purchase includes a free trial membership in the publisher's book club where you can select from more than a million books without charge. Excerpt: Samuel de Champlain (c. 1567 or 1580 December 25, 1635) ( IPA: ), "The Father of New France", was a French navigator, cartographer, draughtsman, soldier, explorer, geographer, ethnologist, diplomat and chronicler, who founded Quebec City on July 3, 1608. Born into a family of master mariners, Champlain, while still a young man, began exploring North America in 1603 under the guidance of François Gravé Du Pont. From 1604-1607, Champlain participated in the exploration and settlement of Acadia, then, in 1608, established the French settlement that is now Quebec City. Champlain was the first European to explore and describe the Great Lakes, and published maps of his journeys and accounts of what he learned from the natives and the ...More: http://booksllc.net/?id=39071 ... Read more

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Ages 8 to 14 years.In the early 1600s, England was among the many countries in search of a northern passage to trade with the Far East. After many explorers failed, Henry Hudson was asked to try. This fascinating new book describes Hudson's exciting voyages and the many hardships he encountered, from becoming frozen in ice to the eventual mutiny of his crew. Features include: map of Hudson's routes; the Muscovy Company; the customs and cultures of the Penebscot, Lenape, and Mahican tribes; the ships and their cargo; the duties and pastimes of the crew while at sea; early navigational equipment; Hudson's discoveries of Hudson's Bay, Greenland, and the Hudson River; the Hudson's Bay Company and the fur trade; a recipe from the period; how England benefited from Hudson's expeditions. ... Read more

Customer Reviews (5)

More a discription of what he saw
A very fscinating discription of those parts of the world, Henry Hudson saw at his voyages and a lot of very interesting information how things developed until today in these regions. Henry Hudson himself gives more the frame than the content of the book.

A Great Read
This is a very enjoyable, very interesting exploration of the story of Henry Hudson.

There is very little known about Hudson, and most of his logs and journals were destroyed or lost. But what Corey Sandler has done is remarkable: he has taken what we do know about Hudson and woven it into an modern-day exploration of the places the great explorer visited.

Sandler visits Svalbard, the icy archipelago near the North Pole and tells its story before and after Hudson's visit on his first voyage. Then he tells the story of Novaya Zemlya, the Russian island where Hudson was trapped on his second expedition and tells how it became the Soviet Union's nuclear scrapyard.

Hudson's third voyage--the one that traveled up the Hudson River--is told within the context of the story of that great river: its early days, its near-ruination by pollution, its environmental champions, and its current riverkeepers.

And then Sandler tells the murder mystery story of Hudson's fourth voyage, to the frozen north of the Canadian Arctic. We learn about the Inuit and Cree, and the theories of how Hudson came to be abandoned by his crew in James Bay.

If you're looking for a traditional history of Henry Hudson, you won't find one. Not here, or anywhere else. His story is mostly lost.

But what Sandler has done is remarkable: it's a great read that places Hudson's voyage within the context of his time and ours.

A fascinating journey
This is a marvelous book about one of the least-known of the great explorers.

As Corey Sandler says, very little is known about Henry Hudson except for the period included within the five years of his four voyages. And much of what is on the record is based on the testimony of the mutineers who were out to save their own necks.

Instead, what the author has done is write a fascinating biography of the PLACES Hudson explored: Svalbard near the north pole, Novaya Zemlya above Russia, the Hudson River, and northern Canada including Hudson Strait, Hudson Bay, and James Bay.

He uses the logs and journals of Hudson and some of his crew to put things in context, and then tells us the stories of some of the most amazing places on the planet.

This is a most unusual book, a great read. And it delivers exactly what it promises: "The Tragic Legacy of the New World's Least Understood Explorer." Every page brought a new perspective on history for me. I highly recommend this book.

Know what you're in for
If you're considering buying this book you should know what you're in for.If you're expecting a biography of Henry Hudson you'll be disappointed.There is very little on Hudson in this book.What you get is a high-level overview of what Hudson is thought to have done and a whole lot of ramble on Corey Sandler's experiences visiting the places Hudson visited.

There's not a whole lot that's known about Hudson.What there is comes from a few brief surviving documents.You get the text from those documents word-for-word with little if any interpretation from the author.That's the real disappointment of this book.If I wanted to read the text of the original documents I'd look them up myself online.What I wanted was expert interpretation and the telling of the story that these documents seem to describe.

Sandler writes from Nantucket, an island he shares with the great historian Nathaniel Philbrick.But where Philbrick excels at taking scant information and turning it into a fascinating story, Sandler dumps the source information on the page and then rambles on about his own experiences in visiting the same places 400 years later.Unfortunately, it's just not very interesting.Thought you'd learn about Hudson's trip up the river that bears his name?You're going to get a little of that and then a whole lot of information on General Electric, PCBs, the environmental movement, and Pete Seeger.

An earlier reviewer characterized this book as being 1/3 history.I'd put it more at 1/10th.By the end of the book you'll know little about Hudson, but all about Sandler's political views, summer camp experiences, family, feelings, travel preferences, and a whole lot of other personal detail.If that's what you're looking to read about, you'll love it.But if you read the title and thought you were instead going to read a biography of Henry Hudson, you'll be disappointed.

Great book!
I am going to give this 5 stars. I'll list why in a second just let me tell you a few of my issues. First Sandler doesn't seem to interview that many people concerning the Clearwater Sloop, the Hudson River Keeper or the many, many other environmental organizations dedicated to keep the Hudson clean. He also brushes over the Storm King case. Sandler does not mention the Indian Point nuclear power plant.

Ok now that's out of the way let me explain a bit why this book is excellent.

First of all its one-third history, one-third travelogue and one-third PSA for keeping all the places Henry Hudson visited clean. The history part is fairly typical in that we don't know much about Hudson; he may have been a bad captain nothing that new or exciting. But overall it's still interesting and a good introduction for those unfamiliar with Hudson.

Then comes the travelogue sections. These are really interesting mostly because of all the unique people the author met on his travels. In reading the book the former director of Clearwater, Andy Mele, comes off as a pretty genuine guy. He's not a crazy tree hugging hippe but just a regular guy that wants to do some good. Most of the environmentalist people come off this way. Some people may not like this but honestly try spending a night near the Hudson...smell that? Yeah, that's the river. I did enjoy Sandle's search for Hudson's monuments and as he mentions in the introduction the most obvious ones are the Hudson River and New York City.

The best parts are the sections that are basically the PSAs about environmentalism. There are numerous digs at GE for dumping PCBs and our society in general. Having lived for four years about 100 yards from the Hudson I must say it's easily one of the greatest sights in the world. But its also one of the biggest dumps too. I think it's terrible that the river is so polluted that you can't go for a swim or eat a fish from there. I had a picnic with my girlfriend one day in Hyde Park right on the river and it was pretty easy to spot all the trash washed up on the shore. Ok enough gushing as Sandler does a much better job explaining this then I do.

In conclusion just read the book. It's excellent.
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Product Description
Explorer Henry Hudson was famous in life and death. Between 1607 and 1611, he led four voyages to find a passage from Europe to the Orient. Although he failed to reach Asia by water, he did discover the Hudson River, Hudson Bay, and Hudson Strait. He traveled in dangerous seas. His crew suffered from freezing conditions. Ice struck his sailing vessels. On his final voyage, his men rebelled. They forced Hudson, his son John, and seven other crewmembers aboard a small boat and set them adrift to die. The crew returned to its homeport without its captain. They were not found guilty of mutiny. ... Read more

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International in scope, this series of non-fiction trade paperbacks offers books that explore the lives, customs and thoughts of peoples and cultures around the world. ... Read more

Customer Reviews (2)

great book
Thisbook issurprising gem of exploration and biography. Johnson makes excellent use of a vast colection of maps, something sorely lacking in many similar books. His grasp of history and the ocean make this a particularly good and informative read.

An excellent biography of Henry Hudson
Not much is known about Henry Hudson, and records are few, but Johnson manages to piece together all of the main elements into one easily-readable book. Johnson also brings his own experience as a sailor to the book, giving it a new facet for readers. Based mostly on Hudson's own journals, this is a concise picture of Hudson's known voyages, with a lot of interesting and informative asides. I recommend this book ... Read more

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The English explorer Henry Hudson devoted his life to the search for a waterroute through America, becoming the first European to navigate the Hudson Riverin the process. In Fatal Journey, acclaimed historian and biographer Peter C.Mancall narrates Hudson's final expedition. In the winter of 1610, afternavigating dangerous fields of icebergs near the northern tip of Labrador,Hudson's small ship became trapped in winter ice. Provisions grew scarce andtensions mounted amongst the crew. Within months, the men mutinied, forcingHudson, his teenage son, and seven other men into a skiff, which they leftfloating in the Hudson Bay. A story of exploration, desperation, and iceboundtragedy, Fatal Journey vividly chronicles the undoing of the great explorer, notby an angry ocean, but at the hands of his own men. ... Read more

Customer Reviews (12)

A poor excuse
This book was very difficult to stay interested in from the beginning. The author states several times in the first chapter there was very little accurate record keeping or actual first hand accounts of the story that he is telling as non-fiction.The author tries to cobble together a likely story of what would be possible at the time, based on general accounts of people unrelated to the story.The only truly concrete information is from sketchy ship logs and the trial that resulted on the return of the mutinous crew.
Overall it was a tough and uninspiring read.

Fatal Journey
This wasn't at all what I expected. It read more like a history book regarding the economic battle between nations to finding the NE or NW passage to spices and riches.
The actual account of Hudson's voyages and especially his fatal voyage was minor in comparison to events that wrapped around the trips.
An ok read - just not for me.

Mutiny is always a fascinating read
Henry Hudson must have made an appearance in my school textbooks, because I had a vague recollection of his fate. I couldn't have told you anything more than that he was set adrift during a mutiny on a sea voyage to locate the elusive Northwest Passage.

This book filled me in adequately on the time of exploration surrounding Hudson's doomed voyage and on Hudson's expedition in particular. I imagine not much is known about the actual voyage of the ship Discovery beyond what Mr. Mancall has written. Other reviewers feel that the book is padded with extraneous information about other expeditions, but I felt it was a good way for the author to fill in the blanks of this sketchy journey with what might have happened, given the challenges other explorers faced on similar expeditions.

The author might have spiced up his tale by heightening the emotional tone of his writing as the mutinous events unfold. The startling revelation that Hudson hid food for himself while his men starved was shocking to me, but the author presents it in much the same tone as he uses to describe the effects of cold on the human body. The narrative drive is somewhat bumpy, too. It doesn't build to the climactic event in the way that, say, a Jon Krakauer book does. But then this story doesn't end with the dramatic cutting loose of Hudson's skiff. The trial back home in England of the remaining crew members follows, and it's not gripping courtroom stuff, at least not as it's presented here.

But this ill-fated sea voyage is worth knowing about in its entirety, whether or not Mr. Mancall's entire book is a thrilling read. It's far better than any textbook I ever got saddled with, that's for sure!

Disappointing. Lacking good narrative and light on facts
I picked up the book from my library after seeing a mention of it on Glenn Reynolds blog and was fairly disappointed in it.

The structure of the book follows Hudson on four journeys: Two due north, one to the Hudson River area of the Atlantic coast, and then his journey to Hudson Bay ending in James Bay.After the mutiny, the book concludes with the trials of the mutineers.

The author doesn't seem to have enough source material to write an entire book on Hudson's journeys.Hudson's early life is fairly anonymous, the circumstances surrounding his death are completely unknown.Against these book-ends, there's only sketchy narrative pieced together from ship logs and from journals very few of which are his own.If this were a book about mutiny on 17th century English ships or northwest passage exploration, Hudson's tale would make an interesting chapter or three.

Next, get yourself a good map of the Hudson Bay, Hudson River and the Arctic Circle before even cracking the book open.

My copy of the book didn't have any kind of useful map other reviewers have mentioned (I wonder if this was an insert in later printings).Without it, the book is confusing and requires constant trips to an atlas to find out what the author is talking about.The maps included in the text are worthless for following the narrative: illegibly small, blurry, and of course dated.Islands and channels are named, but modern names for these places often aren't given alongside.The players in this story were confused about distance and heading, and the author's descriptive style doesn't clear that up for the modern reader either.

Speaking of narrative: Mancall is not a storyteller.He bounces around through the story unevenly, giving away later events that aren't so well known under a guise of foreshadowing.There was undoubtedly a great deal of tension on the ship before Hudson was marooned, but it fails to come through the pages.Twice he drags us through the examination of the mutineers, repeating the same facts but without any drama.He makes it clear that the treatment of mutineers changes between the first and second examinations, but doesn't give much a sense of why that makes the second one necessary or important.

One more nit.The author's previous book was about Richard Hakluyt.Throughout this book, the name is dropped over and over again but without a clear connection of what it has to do with this story.I can understand wanting to re-use your research, or pitching your other book, but please tie it all together.To give you a sense of this sillyness, I recall one passage similar to "Hakluyt may have have written about this".

This book needed a cruel editor.

There probably are better books about Hudson, and there are most certainly better books about English exploration of the Northwest Passage and the New World in the early 17th century.Seek them out.

Tragedy of Henry Hudson
Basically, the book is a credible account of the efforts to find a Northwest Passage in the early to mid-seventeenth century.Mancall does a good job in establishing the economic importance of finding an Arctic route to the Spice Islands.Mancall's research of journals and accounts appears to be exhaustive, but unfortunately the book is a rather dry read.The author may be excused for lack of drama in some respects since the Hudson's journals and those from his associates apparently were rather cursory--unlike Pigafetta's. Even so, the story could be much more compelling had the author visited Hudson Bay or had first hand knowledge of working a sailing vessel in Arctic waters.Much more vivid are the works of Samuel Eliot Morison and Dallas Murphy because they sailed the routes of the voyages they write about.

The two page map of Hudson's voyages (1607-1611) is very welcome and an essential part to understanding the narrative--particularly the inset map of Hudson Bay.The reproductions of early maps, paintings/drawings from other expeditions scattered throughout the book are generally too small and dark to be useful.The large map itself has mislabeled the Provinces of Quebec, Ontario and Manitoba.Also, Davis Strait should have been noted as well as the degrees latitude.
Tom Ogle,South Carolina

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Product Description
Discusses Henry Hudson's four voyages of exploration in search of a passage between Europe and the Far East. ... Read more

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A biography of the explorer whose search for a shorter route to the Far East led him to discover a bay, a strait, and a river on the northeastern coast of America. ... Read more

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Examines the life and career of Henry Hudson, tracing his voyages in the Arctic and North America and his discovery of the Hudson River and other bodies of water during his unsuccessful search for a Northwest Passage to Asia. ... Read more

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In 1607 Henry Hudson was an obscure English sea captain. By 1610 he was an internationally renowned explorer. He had made two voyages in search of a Northeast Passage to the Orient and had discovered the Spitzbergen Islands and their valuable whaling grounds. Hudson had sailed farther north than any other European before him. In 1609, sailing for the Dutch, he had explored the Hudson River and had made possible a Dutch colony in America.

In 1610 Hudson sailed from England on what would be his most famous voyage - to search for a Northwest Passage through the Canadian Arctic. This was also his last exploration. Only a few of the men under his command lived to see England again. Hudson's expedition was one of great discovery and even greater disaster. Extreme Arctic conditions and Hudson's own questionable leadership resulted in the most infamous mutiny in Canadian history, and a mystery that remains unsolved.

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A biography of the English explorer and sea captain who explored three North American waterways later named for him--the Hudson River, Hudson Bay, and Hudson Strait. ... Read more

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The book has no illustrations or index. Purchasers are entitled to a free trial membership in the General Books Club where they can select from more than a million books without charge. Subjects: North America; Hudson River (N.Y. and N.J.); History / General; Biography ... Read more

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THIS 22 PAGE ARTICLE WAS EXTRACTED FROM THE BOOK: Olympians: Elbert Hubbard's Selected Writings Part 2, by Elbert Hubbard. To purchase the entire book, please order ISBN 0766103889. ... Read more

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Four centuries ago, English explorer Henry Hudson (1570-1611), commanding the yacht *Halve Maen* for the Dutch East India Company, sailed into a New World tidal estuary near the landmass the local Lenape Indians called the "island of many hills." The island was Manhattan, and though Hudson was unlikely the first European to see the river, it has been forever after that known by his name.This classic 1860 work collects the eyewitness documentation of Hudson's voyages of exploration, edited, partially translated, and annotated by GEORG MICHAEL ASHER (d. 1905). This invaluable volume of historical accounts includes abstracts of Hudson's own journals, reports by other sailors under Hudson's command, extracts from commentary by Hudson's contemporaries, and much more.The best record we have of Henry Hudson's achievements, this replica volume will be prized by fans of firsthand history.[for special edition only]Visit HenryHudson400.com for news and events honoring the 400th anniversary of Hudson's 1609 third voyage. ... Read more

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Chapters: Samuel de Champlain, Henry Hudson, Francisco Vázquez de Coronado, George Vancouver, Vitus Bering, Walter Raleigh, Louis Jolliet, Juan Ponce de León, Hernando de Alarcón, John C. Frémont, John Smith, Joseph Billings, Juan Rodríguez Cabrillo, Alessandro Malaspina, Robert Gray, Christopher Levett, José María Narváez, James Colnett, Dionisio Alcalá Galiano, Vancouver Expedition, James Larkin White, Álvar Núñez Cabeza de Vaca, Antoine Laumet de La Mothe, Sieur de Cadillac, Henry Timberlake, Manuel Quimper, John Wesley Powell, René-Robert Cavelier, Sieur de La Salle, Meriwether Lewis, William Clark, John Kendrick, Jonathan Carver, Francisco de Eliza, Juan Carrasco, Gaspar de Portolà, George Dixon, Zebulon Pike, Stephen Harriman Long, Robert Barrie, George William Featherstonhaugh, Henry Woodward, Georg Wilhelm Steller, Eusebio Kino, John Scolvus, Friedrich Adolph Wislizenus, Pedro Menéndez de Avilés, Exploration of North America, Salvador Fidalgo, Adriaen Block, Cayetano Valdés Y Flores, Étienne de Veniard, Sieur de Bourgmont, Charles William Barkley, Ferdinand Konščak, Bruno de Heceta, Louis Hennepin, Isaac Weld, Bartholomew Gilbert, Estevanico, John Brereton, Jacinto Caamaño, Samuel Barton, Nicolas Perrot, Otto Von Kotzebue, Truman C. Everts, Juan José Pérez Hernández, José de Bustamante Y Guerra, Jean Nicolet, Leonidas Hubbard, Lucas Vázquez de Ayllón, Melchor Díaz, Francisco de Ulloa, Fernando Rivera Y Moncada, Joseph Nicollet, Edward Kern, Peter Pond, Francisco Garcés, Ralph Lane, José Cardero, Juan de Ayala, Louis-Armand de Lom D'arce de Lahontan, Baron de Lahontan, Sebastián Vizcaíno, Juan Crespí, Gavril Sarychev, Adolf Etolin, Francisco Antonio Mourelle, Frank Wilkeson, Esteban Gómez, Gavriil Pribylov, Grigory Shelikhov, John Otto, Mikhail Lavrov, Martin Pring, Alonso de León, Guðríðr Þorbjarnardóttir, Lafayette Bunnell, José Velásquez, Mikhail Tebenkov, Marcos de Niza, Francisco de Ibarra, Vasily Chichagov, Gonza...More: http://booksllc.net/?id=39071 ... Read more

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The year 2009 marks the four-hundredth anniversary of Henry Hudson's discovery of the majestic river that bears his name. Just in time for this milestone, Douglas Hunter, sailor, scholar, and storyteller, has written the first book-length history of the 1609 adventure that put New York on the map.

Customer Reviews (11)

Overall an interesting read but may be too detailed for some folks...
Overall this was an interesting book about a little-known explorer's little-known explorations of the northernmost coast of North America.However, while you have to applaud the author's efforts given the scarcity of historical documentation, as some other reviewers have already pointed out, the lack of information leads the writer to speculate more frequently than I'd like or to simply leave some loose ends untied.Similarly, the author does tend to jump back and forth within the time line of Hudson's story -- sometimes without forewarning the reader -- which can be frustrating at best, confusing at worst leading the reader to use a little more brainpower than one would sometimes like while doing leisure reading in order to straighten out the chronology in your mind.Others have correctly pointed out that the author employs a lot of detail regarding the nautical and political background but rather than find this distracting as some put it, I appreciate such attention to detail in a historical biography.But then I really enjoy history with a story behind itand read this book that reason.For someone who prefers a story with a bit of history to back it up, this text may prove too fastidious a read.

half moon
an exceptionally well written book about HENRY hUDSON and his discoveries on the high seas and in america..one gets a real feel for exploration and discovery in a time well before modern technology..i am intrigued by the authors presentation of history--he is excited and i am exited by his writing,,

"Half Moon" Is Half Biographical Narrative, Half Maritime Geopolitical History
In Half Moon: Henry Hudson and the Voyage that Redrew the Map of the New World, author Douglas Hunter richly details Henry Hudson's third and penultimate voyage of discovery, the 1609 expedition aboard the Half Moon.

In the first several chapters, Hunter sets the stage for the Half Moon expedition by describing the explorers, voyages, financiers, and financial interests that shaped the maritime geopolitical landscape in the early 17th century. We come to understand how Hudson, an Englishman, was commissioned by the Dutch East India Company to search for and secure a northeast passage to Asia. When this attempt failed (as others previously had, and as Hudson himself supposed it would) near the Arctic islands of Novaya Zemlya to the north of Russia, Hudson reversed course, in breach of his contract, and sailed the Half Moon for North America in search of a northwest passage above Canada or a transcontinental portage route to the Orient.

In narrating the voyage, Hunter mostly draws upon the journal of Hudson's first mate, Robert Juet. After a stormy crossing of the Atlantic, the Half Moon spends considerable time probing several North American coastal waterways, including the Chesapeake and Delaware Bays, before finally arriving in theretofore uncharted New York Harbor. Along the way, Hunter gives us an appreciation of the art and science that skilled navigators needed to master while exploring uncharted waters - most interestingly to this reader the soundings, wind behaviors, tidal patterns, and water salinities that were observed and recorded throughout the voyage.

As we enter New York Harbor about halfway through the book, we discover it as it once was. Hunter admits that a major challenge in deciphering the events of the Half Moon voyage is the fact that the geographic features have changed enormously in four centuries, as shorelines around metropolitan New York have been aggressively re-engineered. Hunter notes the irony that the Dutch, who would launch the development of this mercantile center a little more than a decade after Hudson's voyage, now account for less than 4% of its trade tonnage today. While China on the other hand, the country Hudson was trying to reach by finding a way either through or around North America, now accounts for about one quarter of it! But the heart and soul of this work is the adventure narrative describing Hudson's exploration up and down the great river that today bears his name.

I selected this book because I am an avid reader of historical narrative. However, I found it at times to read more like historical reference rather than narrative, particularly in the chapters preceding the Half Moon's arrival in New York Harbor. Although I greatly enjoyed Hunter's work, and appreciate the tremendous amount of time and effort he undoubtedly invested into his research, especially in light of the scarcity of available records, I would recommend it only to a reader with a keen interest in this topic, rather than to the reader of general historical narrative.

Tedious, narrowly focused
Having just read Champlain's Dream and been fascinated by the exploration and settlement of what is now Canada, I eagerly picked up this book about Henry Hudson, a contemporary of Champlain's. Unfortunately I found this a tedious and narrowly focused book, with a great deal of distracting detail about the internal politics of the Dutch East India Company. It describes one voyage, in great detail, which normally I would applaud, but it simply dragged.

Perhaps I should be looking for a broader review of his voyages - this felt too specialized.

Arcana and conjecture up front, great adventure narrative in the back.
This book was okay, and was worth reading, but it started extremely slowly. I felt that the author couldn't decide between writing adventure narrative and writing academic historical research, and in the end, produced something that was simply a poor effort at both.

The front half of the book was very hard to slog through for me, though I suppose someone with extensive background in the time period and other explorations may have enjoyed it more. Hunter spent a great deal of time describing arcane nautical minutiae, techniques, and history which admittedly did set a richer stage for the latter half of the book, but not so much as to make all that detail necessary. I think it was just too much arcana.

Also, Hunter engaged in what clearly was passionate and possibly heroic research to piece together the front-story to the expedition of the New Moon. Unfortunately for me, I thought his track of connect-the-dots was presented as much more concrete than it warranted. For example, several phrases and types of statements occurred so frequently that they distracted me and made me question what exactly the author actually knew or if he was just guessing at the entire story. These repeated statements were about who "may have" been related to whom, who "must have" met whom as well as where and when they must have met, how four or more different names used by several different people "surely were" referring to the same person, and what books, records, and maps Hudson "would have," "must have," or "surely was," familiar with, in possession of, or basing his explorations on.

The story he weaves is plausible, and I find the effort truly genious, and readily admit that part of my trouble may simply be my failure to be able to follow, but I just found the thread was consistently a bit thin, sketchy, conjectural, and hard to follow. If it was indeed simply my anemic intellect inhibiting my ability to see well-grounded validity in his arguments, then even so that simply illustrates my point that the book was not written to a clear target audience. If written to a layman as an adventure narrative, then get to the story; if written as academic research, then nail down what is concrete, and discard or more clearly mark what is conjectural.

The last half of the book was very rewarding, though, as it cut much of the arcana and got down to the story. If the first 10 chapters were cut down to 1, I would give it 4 stars out of five ... Read more