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A review by socraticgadfly
Sea of Glory: America's Voyage of Discovery, the U.S. Exploring Expedition, 1838-1842 by Nathaniel Philbrick
4.0
Not bad, but not fantastic. Nice overview of the Exploring Expedition in general, the tensions within it and why they happened, and especially of some of the scientific work, most notably James Dana.
As for telling a story, given the amount of tension that seems to have been there, it perhaps could have been heightened more.
Main failure area overall is that I think Philbrick is too sympathetic to Wilkes. Yes, the Dept of the Navy may have erred by not promoting him in advance, but Wilkes was already both high-strung and a martinet before that.
As for the matter of rank in general? It seems the Navy had lieutenant commander and commander ranks between lieutenant and captain back then, as Philbrick references them once. But, ONLY once. He also makes no mention of the possibility of giving Wilkes a brevet rank. (This is almost, but not quite, enough to cost a second star.)
As for telling a story, given the amount of tension that seems to have been there, it perhaps could have been heightened more.
Main failure area overall is that I think Philbrick is too sympathetic to Wilkes. Yes, the Dept of the Navy may have erred by not promoting him in advance, but Wilkes was already both high-strung and a martinet before that.
As for the matter of rank in general? It seems the Navy had lieutenant commander and commander ranks between lieutenant and captain back then, as Philbrick references them once. But, ONLY once. He also makes no mention of the possibility of giving Wilkes a brevet rank. (This is almost, but not quite, enough to cost a second star.)