The Religious World of Captain Cook by Dr Michael Goldsmith

The renowned Cook expert and biographer J. C. Beaglehole, characterised James Cook as a secular rational humanist — a true child, in other words, of the 18th century Enlightenment.

Goldsmith argues that such a view is far too one-sided. Drawing on evidence from Cook’s own upbringing, his shipboard command, his collaboration with churchmen, and his writings about the three great voyages, Goldsmith shows that Cook had a far from antagonistic relationship with the Judaeo-Christian tradition. His relations with Pacific Islanders also demonstrated great curiosity about and respect for religious customs in other societies.

Michael Goldsmith is Associate Professor of Anthropology in the Department of Societies and Cultures at the University of Waikato. His main research interests include religion, politics and society in Tuvalu, cultural identity, ethnicity and race relations in New Zealand, and Pacific history. He contributed the entry on ‘Religion and Cook’ for the Captain Cook Encyclopaedia edited by John Robson (2004).

In association with The University of Waikato in Tauranga.

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