Cochrane: The Real Master and Commander by David CordinglyMy rating: 3 of 5 stars
I so like the movie Master and Commander: The Far Side of the World that I wanted to read this book for historical background. Indeed, some of my favorite scenes such as locking with the a larger vessel in a do-or-die maneuver, a sudden timber-snapping turn to face a larger vessel, and setting adrift a phantom lure are all from Cochrane's own life, if at time from his imagined life. Hearing of this Scottish captain's adventures in this Scottish accent of narrator John Lee makes it more the real and rebel, fiercely libery Cochrane has a colorful, decades-long career of greater scope and globetrotting than even the movie suggests. This runs from a pre-Napoleonic start to a career in Britain's navy and what that meant at the time, to fighting the French, to being a mercenary captain in a South American in the throes of independence to a less stellar role in Greek independence from the Turks before a fitful if redemptive return to England.
Cochrane's abilities from wooden sloops to steamships was not bound by the sea. He explored the possibilities of gas warfare, innovated in rotary engines, found himself alongside stock market shenanigans (maybe guiltily so), and more in this very interesting biography.
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