Leviathan: The History of Whaling in America |
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Leviathan: The History of Whaling in America
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by Eric Jay Dolin
Sales Rank: 23163
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List Price: $27.95
$18.45
At Amazon
on 6-1-2008.
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Features
Cover Type: Hard Cover with 480 pages
Published by: W. W. Norton July 2, 2007
Written in: English
ISBN 10 Number: 0393060578
ISBN 13 Number: 978-0393060577
Book Dimensions:
9.2 x 6.1 x 1.5 inches
Weighs: 1.9 pounds
From Publishers Weekly
Starred Review. In this engrossing account, Dolin (Political Waters) chronicles the epic history of the American whaling industry, which peaked in the mid-18th century as "American whale oil lit the world." Temporarily dealt a blow by the Revolutionary War, whaling grew awesomely in the first half of the 19th century, and then diminished after the 1870s, in part because of the rise of petroleum. Many of America's pivotal moments were bound up with whaling: the ships raided during the Boston Tea Party, for example, carried whale oil from Nantucket to London before loading up with tea. Dolin also shows the ways whaling intersected with colonial conquest of Native Americans—had Indians not sold white settlers crucial coastal land, for example, Nantucket's whaling industry wouldn't have gotten off the ground. He sketches the complex relationship between whaling and slavery: service on a whaler served as a means of escape for some slaves, and whalers were occasionally converted into slave ships. This account is at once grand and quirky, entertaining and informative. 32 pages of illus. (July)
Copyright © Reed Business Information, a division of Reed Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.
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
--This text refers to the
Audio CD
edition.
Reader Reviews
Growing up as I did in southeastern New England - a childhood that included well-remembered trips to Mystic Seaport in Connecticut and the Whaling Museum in New Bedford, Massachusetts - whaling has long been part of my personal fabric of the historical past. Eric Jay Dolin's "Leviathan: The History of Whaling in America" meticulously details that part of the past. In his preface to the book, Dolin (trained in environmental studies) sets out his purpose as being to "re-create what whaling was, not to address what it should be now." And similarly he warns that "this book does not pass judgment on American whalemen by applying the moral, ethical, and cultural sensitivities of modern times to the actions of those who existed in a bygone era." Dolin succeeds admirably in re-creating historical whaling, going back to early English and Dutch whaling efforts and discussing whether coastal American Indians actually engaged in anything beyond "drift whaling" (i.e., opportunistically making use of the carcasses of whales washed ashore). Allthough Basques had crossed the Atlantic as early as the mid-Sixteenth century to pursue "shore whaling" (rowing out from shore installations to hunt and kill whales), it was in particular the English colonists of northeastern American in the Eighteenth century who particularly made an art of deep-sea whaling, sailing out into the Atlantic on long voyages to pursue their prey. Whaling became a major source of economic tension in the decades leading to the American Revolution. Although the years of war (and the War of 1812 a few decades later) for a time diminished the strength of the American whaling industry, it grew dramatically by the time of its "Golden Age" in the 1840s, although various factors including the ready availability of petroleum from newly discovered oil wells soon thereafter sent whaling into a severe decline from which it never recovered. "Leviathan" is well-written, both comprehensive in scope and yet at the same time vividly detailed, examining the romance of whaling in the South Seas (a romance particularly enjoyed by those who were safe and dry on land) and the dirty, harsh reality of spending months and even years at sea hunting the great creatures. Whaling was not a good way for the typical seaman to earn a fortune; indeed, at the end of a long voyage a man aboard a whaler was likely to make barely enough money to get riotously drunk before shipping out again. Dolin carefully examines the bleak economics of whaling and the political complications that sometimes accompanied it (such as the precarious and uncomfortable position occupied by the great whaling center of Nantucket during the American Revolution and the War of 1812, faced with the overwhelming might of the Royal Navy and the necessity to make a living almost exclusively through an industry that inevitably exposed its ships and men to capture or death at the hands of the Royal Navy. And Dolin explores life on whaling ships with its great demands and dangers and its everyday facets. Like Herman Melville, Dolin does not neglect writing about the whale himself, weighing the relative qualities of such whales as the right, the sperm, and the bowhead.
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