Full name: A Pirate of Exquisite Mind: Explorer, Naturalist, and Buccaneer: The Life of William Dampier

Authors: Diana Preston, Michael Preston Year: 2004 Rank: Rating: Original Rating: Pop Rating: Genres/categories: History, Biographies, Non Fiction, Science, Adventure Purchase/reserch links: LibraryThing Goodreads Amazon ISBNs: 9780802714251 9780425200377 0802714250 042520037X

Darwin took his books aboard the Beagle. Swift and Defoe used his experiences as inspiration in writing Gulliver's Travels and Robinson Crusoe. Captain Cook relied on his observations while voyaging around the world. Coleridge called him a genius and "a man of exquisite mind." In the history of exploration, nobody has ventured further than Englishman William Dampier. Yet while the exploits of Cook, Shackleton, and a host of legendary explorers have been widely chronicled, those of perhaps the greatest are virtually invisible today--an omission that Diana and Michael Preston have redressed in this vivid, compelling biography. As a young man Dampier spent several years in the swashbuckling company of buccaneers in the Caribbean. At a time when surviving one voyage across the Pacific was cause for celebration, Dampier ultimately journeyed three times around the world; his bestselling books about his experiences were a sensation, influencing generations of scientists, explorers, and writers. He was the first to deduce that winds cause currents and the first to produce wind maps across the world, surpassing even the work of Edmund Halley. He introduced the concept of the "sub-species" that Darwin later built into his theory of evolution, and his description of the breadfruit was the impetus for Captain Bligh's voyage on the Bounty. Dampier reached Australia 80 years before Cook, and he later led the first formal expedition of science and discovery there. A Pirate of Exquisite Mind restores William Dampier to his rightful place in history--one of the pioneers on whose insights our understanding of the natural world was built. Similar books: Lady Franklin's Revenge by Ken McGoogan Amerigo by Felipe Fernandez-Armesto Cook by Nicholas Thomas Admiral of the Ocean Sea by Samuel Eliot Morison The Richest Woman in America by Janet Wallach The Pirate Hunter by Richard Zacks Sir Francis Drake by John Sugden Captain Cook by Vanessa Collingridge Nelson and Emma by Roger Hudson Queen Victoria by Lucy Worsley Bess of Hardwick by Mary S. Lovell Wedlock by Wendy Moore Doc Holliday by John Myers Myers Banvard's Folly by Paul Collins Captain James Cook by Richard Hough Isaac's Storm by Erik Larson The Wild Trees by Richard Preston The Perfect Storm by Sebastian Junger The Right Stuff by Tom Wolfe The Immortal Life of Henrietta Lacks by Rebecca Skloot