In its heyday there were thousands of whaling ships in every major sea and the lure of freedom, money and adventure was a siren call to many young men including the author who responded to a Help Wanted ad for, as he says, .the adventure of the thing. Anecdotes, character sketches and settings provide lively counterpoint to the harsh and dangerous conditions Burns endured. The author's sharp eye makes this an unforgettable adventure story.
In its heyday there were thousands of whaling ships in every major sea and the lure of freedom, money and adventure was a siren call to many young men including the author who responded to a Help Wanted ad for, as he says, .the adventure of the thing. Anecdotes, character sketches and settings provide lively counterpoint to the harsh and dangerous conditions Burns endured. The author's sharp eye makes this an unforgettable adventure story.
A greenhorn sailor (age 18) goes on voyage after whales in Bering and Acrtic Seas. A great book regarding whaling, somewhat comparable to Dana's Two Years Before the Mast, in that it gave insight into the day to day life of a sailor on a whaling ship.
Describes the inglorious life of a boy from Nantucket who in 1819 joins the crew of a whaling ship, including freezing trips to the Arctic, carving scrimshaw, boiling whales for oil, and sinking ships.
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.
Presents the story of the Austrian child-bride who, in the "safety" of a royal marriage, was swept up in the political furies of her time and paid with her life for the luxurious excesses associated with her court.
