![]() At the center of this global enterprise was the island of Nantucket, home to roughly 7,000 people, most of whom were Quakers, or as Melville called them, “Quakers with a vengeance.” Men often stayed home for only a few months at a time, with voyages in between that lasted two to three years. ![]() Hunting and harvesting 60-ton sperm whales on the vast and vastly uncharted Pacific Ocean was neither easy nor safe, but it was big business in the early to mid-1800s during the Industrial Revolution, Philbrick explains in the opening chapters. Nathaniel Philbrick’s In the Heart of the Sea tells the true story of the crewmembers’ fight for survival, and the circumstances surrounding the disaster that inspired Herman Melville’s novel, Moby-Dick, 30 years later. Facing starvation, disease, brutal weather, and a near loss of hope, they succumbed to drastic measures as they fought to stay alive. For 90 days, the crew drifted in small boats with no sense of where they were in the vast sea. Instead, they found themselves part of one of the most horrifying maritime disasters in American history when an 85-foot angry sperm whale rammed and sunk their vessel. They left the popular whaling island of Nantucket, Massachusetts, and headed for the South Pacific in what was to be a routine voyage. In 1819, 20 crewmembers set sail on a ship called the Essex to hunt whales. “How much of assumed national and personal character comes from the fact that we have never truly known need to the point of having our character tested?” – from In the Heart of the Sea “Hope was all that stood between them and death.” – from In the Heart of the Sea Award-winning author of more than ten books, Philbrick “has created an eerie thriller from a centuries old tale… Scrupulously researched and eloquently written, In the Heart of the Sea is a masterpiece of maritime history,” writes the New York Times. The ship sank, sending the crewmembers adrift for months as they faced storms, starvation, and disease. Winner of the National Book Award for Nonfiction and on the New York Times bestseller list for 40 weeks, this “spellbinding” ( Time) “page turner” ( New York Times) tells the true story of the 19th-century whaleship Essex out of Nantucket that got rammed by one of the largest whales anyone had ever seen, the whale that inspired Herman Melville’s Moby-Dick. Nathaniel Philbrick’s In the Heart of the Sea is “one of the most chilling books I have ever read,” writes Sebastian Junger, author of The Perfect Storm. ![]() This title will no longer be available for programming after the 2020-21 grant year. ![]()
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