3.5 stars

Captain George Vancouver served the British Royal Navy in the late 18th century. He initially did some exploring with Captain James Cook, and was later assigned to lead his own exploration to document/map the Pacific Northwest and to look for a Northwest Passage. No one yet had explored this large territory. Unfortunately for him, he was a stickler for rules and made some high-powered enemies (subordinates based on navy rankings, but high-powered back home in England) on this multi-year voyage. At the same time, he was very congenial towards the people they met along the way.

Overall, this was good. There were parts where I had trouble focusing, though, so I did end up skimming a bit of it. I debated between an “ok” rating (3 stars) or a “good” rating (3.5 stars), but decided on 3.5 (though I more often tend to round down when I'm having trouble deciding). However, the end of the book really picked up for me, and I felt badly for Captain Vancouver and how he was treated after the voyage was over. He was already ill and I felt he was being bullied. He was very strict, but it sounds like for the time, he was within his rights to be as strict as he was. I was very impressed with his dealings with the natives he came across, as well as the Spanish explorers they met along the way. ( )

Missed Opportunity

In "Madness, Betrayal and the Lash" popular historian Stephen Bown recounts the biography of British explorer George Vancouver with specific attention to his voyages up and down the pacific coast of North America as part of the British Navy.

As a primer to the life of George Vancouver, Bown has done an admirable job putting together the known facts into a concise narrative. His writing is fluid and the story is genuinely intriguing. However, there are a few areas where the book falls short of expectations.

The first would be a lack of citation. Bown includes a bibliography but only a "Note on Sources" section and not a proper endnotes section. Call me a stickler for details, but if I read anything that purports to be "history" it must have footnotes/endnotes so the reader can see exactly where all the information is coming from. I realize that Bown includes the source in his writing on most occasions such as: "[t]he [H]istorian Barry Gough writes...." (p74) but I still expect to see notes (maybe that's just the academic in me talking).

Which brings me to my second point that Bown relies so much on the secondary source material of other historians that the book is neither a complete biography nor a new historical interpretation. Bown admits as much writing: "I have not gone through archives scouring for new documentary evidence of Vancouver's voyage ... What I have attempted to do is place Vancouver's life and defining voyage in a broader historical setting than previous biographies" (p238). What I interpret this to mean is that Bown does not intend the book to be a full biography of the man (which the book certainly is not), but rather to explain the significance of his "defining voyage" (which is only partial in this case).

The book is stuck between the kind of stirring historical narrative of a David McCullough book and an academic text. I think Bown was aiming for McCullough but Bown never really gets the reader into the head of Vancouver. For example, the unique triangulation between Spain's Bodega y Quadra and Mowachaht's Maquinna would've made for a fascinating character study but instead what we get is just a newspaper-style recount of the negotiations.

In my opinion, Bown is at his best in the sections in between his narrative where he offers us his historical interpretation of the events which I realize is not the true intent of his book.

It is unfortunate that this book does provide any new information or unique interpretation for the brief late 19th century period where "Vancouver Island was one of the most important and talked-about places in the world" (p1-2). As a strictly summertime read to learn about some obscure figure by the name of "Vancouver" that happens to bear the same name of two cities and an island, this book does the job. For anyone looking for something more in depth, you'll have to keep on searching. ( )