Leviathan: The History of Whaling in America - Hardcover

Dolin, Eric Jay

Hardcover

ISBN 10: 0393060578 ISBN 13: 9780393060577

Publisher: W. W. Norton & Company, 2007

Synopsis

A Los Angeles Times Best Non-Fiction Book of 2007
A Boston Globe Best Non-Fiction Book of 2007
Amazon.com Editors pick as one of the 10 best history books of 2007
Winner of the 2007 John Lyman Award for U. S. Maritime History, given by the North American Society for Oceanic History

“The best history of American whaling to come along in a generation.”―Nathaniel Philbrick

The epic history of the "iron men in wooden boats" who built an industrial empire through the pursuit of whales. "To produce a mighty book, you must choose a mighty theme," Herman Melville proclaimed, and this absorbing history demonstrates that few things can capture the sheer danger and desperation of men on the deep sea as dramatically as whaling. Eric Jay Dolin begins his vivid narrative with Captain John Smith's botched whaling expedition to the New World in 1614. He then chronicles the rise of a burgeoning industry―from its brutal struggles during the Revolutionary period to its golden age in the mid-1800s when a fleet of more than 700 ships hunted the seas and American whale oil lit the world, to its decline as the twentieth century dawned. This sweeping social and economic history provides rich and often fantastic accounts of the men themselves, who mutinied, murdered, rioted, deserted, drank, scrimshawed, and recorded their experiences in journals and memoirs. Containing a wealth of naturalistic detail on whales, Leviathan is the most original and stirring history of American whaling in many decades. 32 pages of illustrations

About this title

About the Author:

Eric Jay Dolin is the author of the bestselling Leviathan: The History of Whaling In America, which was chosen as one of the best nonfiction books of 2007 by The Los Angeles Times, The Boston Globe, and The Providence Journal, and was chosen by Amazon.com's editors as one of the top ten history books of 2007. Leviathan also won the 2007 John Lyman Award for U. S. Maritime History, and the 23rd Annual L. Byrne Waterman Award, given by the New Bedford Whaling Museum, for outstanding contributions to whaling research and history. His last book, Fur, Fortune, and Empire: The Epic History of the Fur Trade in America, was chosen by New West, The Seattle Times, and the Rocky Mountain Land Library as one of the best nonfiction books of 2010, and it also won the 2011 James P. Hanlan Book Award, given by the New England Historical Association. A graduate of Brown, Yale, and MIT, where he received his Ph.D. in environmental policy, he lives in Marblehead, Massachusetts, with his wife and two children.

From AudioFile:

Killing whales is anathema now, but the whaling industry played a big part in the economic development of the U.S. It affected, and was affected by, Indian-settler relations, fugitive slaves, the Revolution, the War of 1812, and the Civil War. James Boles reads this well-organized history with a steadiness and clarity that keeps you listening. Its long narrative sections are broken by quotes, journal entries, and rhymes, all enlivened as much as possible. Life on a whaler was hard and usually rewarding only for the officers and owners. Though Boless reading is pretty evenhanded emotionally, you sense a sympathy for the sailors, if not for the whales. Discovery of oil in Pennsylvania and the corsetless (whalebone) fashion of the early twentieth century rendered the U.S. whaling business obsolete. J.B.G. © AudioFile 2008, Portland, Maine-- Copyright © AudioFile, Portland, Maine

About this edition

• Publisher: W. W. Norton & Company
• Publication date: 2007
• ISBN 10: 0393060578
• ISBN 13: 9780393060577
• Binding: Hardcover
• Edition number: 1
• Number of pages: 480