Reviews with content warning for Blood - In the Heart of the Sea: The Incredible True Story that Inspired Moby-Dick

Herman Melville’s famous novel Moby Dick is considered a must-read classic, and one that was inspired by the real-life tragedy of the whaleship Essex. Philbrick’s book tells of that event. Just like Melville, Philbrick got a lot of his information from First Mate Owen Chase’s account of the events, though Chase’s account is limited as he, along with cabin boy Thomas Nickerson (the other source of information for Philbrick’s book), and a few other members of the crew were separated from the captain. It was a shock for Owen Chase when one of the Sperm Whale they would normally hunt attacks the Essex sinking it. They experience the horrors of dehydration and starvation eventually resorting to cannibalisms. Owen Chase comes off as ambitious and he along with the second mate didn’t always agree with Captain Pollard, who came off as passive and not a very good Captain. We do get a bit of Nickerson and his thoughts on the situation, but most of the book focuses on Owen Chase. Philbrick goes into detail on how they catch and remove the blubber from the whales and at one point crew ends up on an island where they try to hunt try tropical birds. There is also a discussion of the African American’s being the first to died and are the ones that die first and are eaten by the survivors. The author also talks other ships that have similar circumstances and how they responded. This good deep dive into an event that people don’t know about.

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nimeneth's review against another edition

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informative tense slow-paced

3.5

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keepsleep's review against another edition

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challenging emotional reflective medium-paced

4.5

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jhbandcats's review against another edition

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adventurous dark informative inspiring reflective sad tense medium-paced

5.0

This is such a powerful book. I have learned so much more history since graduating from high school and college than I ever did when I was taking classes. I love history, I love sea stories, I love adventure / disaster stories. And this is a great one.

Philbrick gives a brief history of Nantucket and the whaling business that dominated the island in the late 1700s and early 1800s. He gives background on the family and island ties, people bound together by their being Quakers in a town with a singular focus on building wealth. He shows how outsiders - either mainlanders or non-Quakers - were ostracized. And he shows the compulsion to be better, faster, more successful than friends and neighbors.

All that came to bear in the disastrous voyage of the whaleship Essex, the ship whose destruction by an angry whale inspired Melville to write Moby Dick. The privations of the men were terrible - I think the worst is having to kill one another to survive. I can see how desperate people would be forced to eat anything they could, even if it were other people, but to eat people who have died is very different from drawing lots to determine who's going to be the next meal. How do you live with that?

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bronzemist's review against another edition

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dark informative slow-paced

4.0

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