Considering Cook’s legacy from the vantage point of continental Europe allows this special issue of the journal Astrolabe and the Hakluyt Society-backed Paris conference which was its starting point to address the controversial anniversary from an original angle. Engaging with our times’ changing practices of commemoration around a controversial figure and a complex history, our international project has gestured towards endorsing new critical approaches to both the methods and the results of the discovery voyages published by the Hakluyt Society over the century and a half of its existence.