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The Captain Cook Encyclopaedia, John Robson
Random House
Reviewed by Mike Bowler (Courtesy of Taranaki Daily News)

It's a dead giveaway that a subject has reached critical mass when encyclopaedia start appearing to cover it. John Robson's work on Captain Cook takes that measure, and he's found a heap of information to flesh out the latest book in the Cook catalogue.

Billed as an essential reference for anyone keen to know more about the famous English navigator, it fills a couple of hundred pages in a hard-cover volume with facts, figures and bite-sized chunks of Cook legend.

Robson hails from Cook country – Stockton-on-Tees in Country Durham – but is now the Map Librarian at the University of Waikato. He is also the president of the New Zealand Map Society and the author of the map-based Captain Cook's World.

Robson isn't just a writer of the book – he's the editor. There are plenty of academics among the contributors, including Victoria University's Professor Tim Beaglehole.

Despite the colour cover and the glossy paper, the book, printed in China, has surprisingly low production values – plenty of grey and only eight pages of colour plates.