With his new book, The Wide Wide Sea: Imperial Ambition, First Contact and the Fateful Final Voyage of Captain James Cook, best-selling author and historian Hampton Sides reckons with the ambitions and intentions of Captain James Cook. In recent years, Sides writes, the enigmatic British explorer and gifted cartographer has become, in some respects, the “Columbus of the Pacific.” Cook, once seen as a swashbuckling adventurer whose exploits inspired countless books and movies, is now a divisive figure, known for stealing from Indigenous people and their land.