OK, I started talking about this and now I can't stop.
So, if you wanna read modern books about whaling I can't recommend enough "Leviathan" by Eric J. Dolin. It's by far the most comprehensive and accessible book about the American whaling industry. It's deep, well researched and thick with information, but at the same time it's not academic or dependent on the reader's baggage. The one (obvious) criticism I got for this book is that it's too American. It can't help looking at whaling from a purely American perspective. He acknowledges the British, but at times ignoring the Basque and Portuguese (except when it comes to the Portuguese participation in the New England whaling industry). Then again, it IS supposed to be a book about the history of the American whale fishery.
And my final recommendation of whaling books is "Final Voyage" by Peter Nichols. This is a book about the great whaling disaster of 1871, which is told from the perspective of several persons involved in it. If you're not familiar with it, it was a fateful arctic whaling which trapped over 30 vessels in the ice before they could make it through the strait of Behring. There's an IMMENSE wealth of first hand accounts in this book. The story is told through excerpts from people's mail, diaries, and published narratives. The book is so rich with characters and stories that at times it's hard to keep track of who's who or who was doing what. Despite that, it's a treasure trove of first hand accounts of that period (and not just sailors and sea life, but also accounts of women and even children who were onboard some of the ships). Not to mention that the disaster of 1871 is as much a polar survival subject as it is a whaling one.
Now, my favorite subgenre is voyages of exploration and discovery. If I had to choose one story to begin with, I'd go with Pigafetta's narrative of the first circumnavigation (A.K.A. Magellan's Voyage). You couple that with a good modern book like Laurence Bergreen's "Over the Edge of the World", that will filling the gaps of all the shit you didn't understand, and you're set. You can find Pigafetta's book for free in Gutenberg project and in the Internet Archive (both in revised modern Italian and translated to English). Sorry about this frens, I didn't mean to attempt thread hijacking, but it was stronger than me.
OK, I started talking about this and now I can't stop. So, if you wanna read modern books about whaling I can't recommend enough "Leviathan" by Eric J. Dolin. It's by far the most comprehensive and accessible book about the American whaling industry. It's deep, well researched and thick with information, but at the same time it's not academic or dependent on the reader's baggage. The one (obvious) criticism I got for this book is that it's too American. It can't help looking at whaling from a purely American perspective. He acknowledges the British, but at times ignoring the Basque and Portuguese (except when it comes to the Portuguese participation in the New England whaling industry). Then again, it IS supposed to be a book about the history of the American whale fishery.
And my final recommendation of whaling books is "Final Voyage" by Peter Nichols. This is a book about the great whaling disaster of 1871, which is told from the perspective of several persons involved in it. If you're not familiar with it, it was a fateful arctic whaling which trapped over 30 vessels in the ice before they could make it through the strait of Behring. There's an IMMENSE wealth of first hand accounts in this book. The story is told through excerpts from people's mail, diaries, and published narratives. The book is so rich with characters and stories that at times it's hard to keep track of who's who or who was doing what. Despite that, it's a treasure trove of first hand accounts of that period (and not just sailors and sea life, but also accounts of women and even children who were onboard some of the ships). Not to mention that the disaster of 1871 is as much a polar survival subject as it is a whaling one.
Now, my favorite subgenre is voyages of exploration and discovery. If I had to choose one story to begin with, I'd go with Pigafetta's narrative of the first circumnavigation (A.K.A. Magellan's Voyage). You couple that with a good modern book like Laurence Bergreen's "Over the Edge of the World", that will filling the gaps of all the shit you didn't understand, and you're set. You can find Pigafetta's book for free in Gutenberg project and in the Internet Archive (both in revised modern Italian and translated to English). Sorry about this frens, I didn't mean to attempt thread hijacking, but it was stronger than me.
Hey. Thank you for all this.