Our Non Fiction Book of the Month for June 2026 is The Traveller: The Revolutionary Life of George Forster and His Search for Humanity by Andrea Wulf
Forster journeyed to the edges of the known world and challenged the worldviews of eighteenth-century Europe with radical ideas about equality and freedom. Celebrated during his lifetime, he has since been largely forgotten by history. The Traveller seeks to restore Forster as one of the great visionaries of his era.
Aged just 17 Forster joined Captain Cook’s second voyage – an exploration of the icy world of Antarctica to the tropical islands of the South Pacific. He studied the diverse nature, people and cultures he encountered and came back filled with a deep belief in the equality of races. On his return he was feted across Europe and used his fame to advocate freedom and human rights and argue against empire, racism and slavery.
This book traces how he became a leader of the short-lived Republic of Mainz and was eventually forced into exile in Paris during the Reign of Terror. Following in Forster’s footsteps from Europe to Tahiti, and drawing on a wealth of correspondence mostly unpublished in English, Andrea Wulf paints a portrait of a remarkable, passionate figure.
