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

Diana Preston,Michael Preston

A Pirate of Exquisite Mind: The Life of William Dampier: Explorer, Naturalist, and Buccaneer
Format
Paperback
Publisher
Penguin Putnam Inc
Country
United States
Published
5 April 2005
Pages
384
ISBN
9780425200377

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

Diana Preston,Michael Preston

Seventeenth-century pirate genius William Dampier sailed around the world three times when crossing the Pacific was a major feat, was the first explorer to visit all five continents, and reached Australia eighty years before Captain Cook. His exploits created a sensation in Europe. Swift and Defoe used his experiences in writing Gulliver’s Travels and Robinson Crusoe. Darwin incorporated his concept of sub-species into the theory of evolution. Dampier’s description of breadfruit was the impetus for Captain Bligh’s voyage on the Bounty. He was so influential that today he has more than one thousand entries in the Oxford English Dictionary, including such words as chopsticks, barbecue, and kumquat. Anthropologists still use his work.

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