A review by codeanders
In the Heart of the Sea: The Tragedy of the Whaleship Essex by Nathaniel Philbrick
adventurous
challenging
dark
informative
sad
tense
fast-paced
4.0
The story of a whaling disaster that inspired Moby-Dick, this really is a tragedy through and through. All along, decisions were made, likely with good intentions in mind, that laid the path that left two thirds of the crew dead.
This book feels like it was written further back than 2000, but that works with the general feel and era of the subject matter. I never knew whaling was quite so disgusting, and the author doesn't spare details of just how bad the situation got for the men in the boats. He also shines a light on how the crew's (and officers' in particular) racism and xenophobia turned them away from a much safer path to salvation in the Pacific Islands (they were afraid of cannibals, which ended up terribly ironic), and how the black men on the ship were the first to die, one by one, while all the survivors were white.
I do wish all the maps and diagrams had been right at the front, as I found them annoying to locate every time I wanted to reference something, or I didn't even realize they existed until after I had needed them.
This book feels like it was written further back than 2000, but that works with the general feel and era of the subject matter. I never knew whaling was quite so disgusting, and the author doesn't spare details of just how bad the situation got for the men in the boats. He also shines a light on how the crew's (and officers' in particular) racism and xenophobia turned them away from a much safer path to salvation in the Pacific Islands (they were afraid of cannibals, which ended up terribly ironic), and how the black men on the ship were the first to die, one by one, while all the survivors were white.
I do wish all the maps and diagrams had been right at the front, as I found them annoying to locate every time I wanted to reference something, or I didn't even realize they existed until after I had needed them.