Whaling Days

Surveys the whaling industry, ranging from hunting in colonial America to modern whaling regulations and conservation efforts.

Describes what life was like for a family on Nantucket in 1827, including home, school, religion, and the father's expedition on a whaling ship.

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.

The history of American whaling is most frequently associated with Nantucket, New Bedford and Mystic. However, the state of Maine also played an integral part in the development and success of this important industry. The sons of Maine became whaling captains, whaling crews, inventors, investors and businessmen. Towns along the coast created community-wide whaling and sealing ventures, outfitted their own ships and crewed them with their own people. The state also supplied the growing industry with Maine-built ships, whale boats, oars and other maritime supplies. For more than two hundred years, the state forged a strong and lasting connection with the American whaling industry. Author and historian Charles Lagerbom reveals why Maine should rightly take its place alongside its more well-known New England whaling neighbors.