In the Heart of the Sea: The Tragedy of the Whaleship Essex

What a powerful book. This book drew lots of emotion out of me and I developed lots of empathy for the whalers and their families, plus the slaughtering of the whales added to my wanting of the whaling industry of today totally stopped. Its totally inhumane, gross and horrible. I feel for the whales too. Great action and historical truth about the whale ship Essex and her crew and their families in Nantucket.In the Heart of the Sea The Tragedy of the whaleship Essex is a page burner. Read it in 1 1/2 day. No boring parts...a fascinating read. This was the true story Herman Melville based his epic great novel Moby Dick on. Nathaniel Philbrick wrote a fascinating true historical book on the tragedy that befalls the crew on the whale ship Essex. 1819 the whale ship Essex and her 20 man crew leave Nantucket island for a 1 1/2 year regular whaling voyage. Unfortunately the Essex is rammed twice by an estimated 85ft Sperm Whale. The Essex is capsized and later sinks. The crew abandon ship in 3 small whaleboats with only a few hundred pounds of hardtack for food and luckily several nautical sighting instruments. LOTs of mistakes are made by Captain George Pollard, first mate Chase and a man named Joy in charge of their respective whaleboats. The captain had originally the right idea to head for an island but was swayed by the other officers because of fears of cannibals on islands to head for South America. We see the tragic dilemma of missing the right winds, missing closer islands with no cannibals and having to travel thousands of miles and running out of food and water. The men are forced to become cannibals and eating their dead friends and one time a young man ( Captain Pollard's nephew) draws a lot and is killed and eaten. Strange and suspect that the first eaten were all the black sailors. INMO the true Nantucket natives kept to themselves and became the hawks to prey on the blacks who seemed to get sicker first. The blacks had the poorer food on the Essex and developed less body fat to sustain them in their hunger and lack of food shipwrecked at sea. This to me was a very emotional tragedy story not a true adventure story. If you can't feel for these people you have no emotions. Two partial boats with a few survivors are rescued after a few months at sea...most dead and eaten by the survivors. One boat found with only 4 skeletons. Three men are left on a small island with only their wits to capture the little food on the island and a spring that goes out under the tide so little or no water, are later rescued. You can imagine what the different families on Nantucket went through after hearing about the Essex sinking and later the survival stories related to cannibalism. Gives me the horrors just thinking about it. Just look at all the 5 star reviews. Lots of other reviewers thought this was a great book. If you want a book that will pull on your emotions and let you develop deep empathy toward the whalers and their families this is the book for you. Again INMO this is not a true adventure book but a deeply emotional tragedy. Also lots of great nautical whaling history before and after the Essex tragedy. 5 stars

A great story of survival on the seas. I enjoyed this book and was amazed by the depths to which these men sank. The writer did a great job pulling his information from all sources available for a story 180 years old. When there was disagreements as to stories, this was pointed out. By now you have probably heard the main part of the story: massive whale attacks and sinks ship, men are put in small whaling ships and set out on the sea to travel over 2,000 miles with crude navigational devices spending over 90 days on the sea. This book really describes in detail the depths the human body will go to from a physical and mental standpoint. The book becomes so engrossing you can't put it down. I do most of my reading at night but started reading early over breakfast right as the issue of cannibalism came up. Not my best move as it is studied in depth. This writer does a good job of relaying the journals kept and then translating the physical and mental effects to later studies done on starvation, particularly the Minnesota study done in the 1940s. The crew eventually splits into four groups and it's interesting to see what happens to the four groups. I particularly found it interesting they were able to determine what happened to the three crew members left on an island after refusing to get back in the whaling boat. Overall, I think you will enjoy this book. If you like this book, I strongly encourage you to read Endurance about the journey of Shackleton. It's very similar and mesmerizing how they survived in extreme cold. I normally don't like period piece books but this is very good and I strongly recommend. If you like books of adventure and survival, this is a good book for you.

I’m so glad I discovered this book. So well written. Such an amazing story. I can’t wait to read it again. I completed this book in its entirety in 3 days.

This book is a timeless tale about a ship's journey into the our endless oceans in quest of exploiting whales, and the tragedy that followed, which inspired the classic Moby Dick. The time and place is Nantucket in the early 19th century, during the height of the whaling industry, when sailing ships would go out across the Atlantic and Pacific oceans to kill whales and bring whale oil back to shore for profit. This is a time and place I knew nothing about, and the author does a masterful job of weaving non-fiction background information into the narrative of this incredible and almost unbelievable true survival story. I would call him 'Barbara Tuchman light', as he is in the same genre but stay away from dense and dry political paragraphs, and sticks to the adventure. His descriptions of Nantucket, its cultural and economic pecking order, and the (sometimes conflicting) morals of the Quakers serve the reader well to more fully understand the time and place during which this occurred. It was America as a young nation, striving to prove its place in the world, and Nantucket and its whaling industry were front and center to this endeavor. Philbrick doesn't shy away from the horror of this endeavor: the brutal kiling of whales is described in detail. Also important and compelling is the background provided about racism in America at that time, still a slave nation: although the Quakers prided themselves on being racially just, African Americans were, in fact, second class citizens even among the Quakers, which ultimately proves fatal for them in the context of this story. This book inspired me to plan to read Moby Dick in addition to the Mayflower, another book by the author. I also bought his book called 'Ben's Revolution', which is a children's book about the battle of Bunker Hill.

Just could not put the book down , engaging and entertaining . Loved every page of it .

a very well researched true story. Melville wrote his book "Moby Dick" based on this whaling venture. a gripping read of survival. didn't realize before that whales could ram a ship and cause so much damage! and a great book for teens!

I never thought there was a recorded account of an actual sinking of a ship by a whale...how wrong I was! This is the true story of the sinking of the whale ship Essex by an 80 ton sperm whale in the middle of the Pacific Ocean in 1820. This is `thee' actual story that prompted Herman Melville to write his famous Moby Dick novel. Having been rammed by an angry whale the Essex sank within ten minutes and its twenty one man crew took to the sea with scant provisions in three whaling boats. What follows is a four thousands mile plus sea odyssey of incredible suffering and privation. Despite some serious errors of judgement where closer landfall could have been reached such as Easter Island, Pitcairn or Tahiti...the survivors show remarkable seamanship in reaching Chile after spending a desperate three months adrift. This is not a tale along the lines of Shackleton's epic South however where all live to tell the tale of their ordeal. Only two of the three boats reach safety and only eight of the twenty one crewmen survive the journey, the remainder die a terrible death mainly from lack of food, water or from the elements. When I say `mainly', some of the occupants die by `lot' selection by their crewmates and are simply killed....you can guess what comes after that...yes you guessed it messmate cannibalism! This is a well written explanatory book that as well as highlighting the individual characters involved also gives a good descriptive narrative of the whaling techniques and equipment of the period. The description of the boat journeys however is the coup de main as the suffering and the despair of the crew leaps out from the pages....a great read!

One of the best books about the sea ever written. The courage and fortitude of these whalers was beyond magnificent. The author relates every excruciating detail of their epic voyage of survival but in a very suspenseful manner. Must read!

Livre arriver en bon état! Je dois encore le lire ^^