In the Heart of the Sea: The Tragedy of the Whaleship Essex is a book by American writer Nathaniel Philbrick about the loss of the whaler Essex in the Pacific Ocean in 1820.

In the Heart of the Sea: The Tragedy of the Whaleship Essex is a book by American writer Nathaniel Philbrick about the loss of the whaler Essex in the Pacific Ocean in 1820. The book was published by Viking Press on May 8, 2000, and won the 2000 National Book Award for Nonfiction. It was adapted into a film of the same name, which came out in late 2015. The Essex, an American whaleship from Nantucket, Massachusetts, sank after a sperm whale attacked it in the Pacific Ocean in November 1820.

The epicenter of the whaling industry was Nantucket, a small island off Cape Cod; most of the whales were in the .

The epicenter of the whaling industry was Nantucket, a small island off Cape Cod; most of the whales were in the Pacific, necessitating a huge journey around the southernmost tip of South America. Similarly, Philbrick tells us that the story of the Essex was well known to Americans for decades, but he never explores how such legends fade from our consciousness.

The Nantucket ship Essex was commanded by a newly commissioned captain by the name of George Pollard. The ship, an old vessel, had always been thought of as a lucky ship, given that it had returned so many profits to the owners. Much of the crew was green and were on their first whaling voyage. As I was reading this, even before Philbrick brought forth the comparison to the eradication of the buffalo in the same century, I was having flashbacks to Butcher’s Crossing by John Williams. I had to stop and go read something else for the rest of the day.

The ordeal of the whaleship Essex was an event as mythic in the nineteenth century as the sinking of the Titanic was in the twentieth. In 1819, the Essex left Nantucket for the South Pacific with twenty crew members aboard

The ordeal of the whaleship Essex was an event as mythic in the nineteenth century as the sinking of the Titanic was in the twentieth. In 1819, the Essex left Nantucket for the South Pacific with twenty crew members aboard. In the middle of the South Pacific the ship was rammed and sunk by an angry sperm whale. The crew drifted for more than ninety days in three tiny whaleboats, succumbing to weather, hunger, disease, and ultimately turning to drastic measures in the fight for survival.

Nathaniel Philbrick, the bestselling author of In the Heart of the Sea and Mayflower, brings his prodigious talents to the story of the Boston battle that ignited the American Revolution. Boston in 1775 is an island city occupied by British troops after a. Valiant Ambition: George Washington, Benedict Arnold, and the Fate of the American Revolution. by Nathaniel Philbrick.

In 1819, the 238-ton Essex set sail from Nantucket on a routine voyage to hunt whales. Fifteen months later the Essex was rammed and sunk by an enraged sperm whale. Fearing cannibals on the islands to the west, the 20-man crew set out in three small boats for South America, almost 3,000 miles away. Three months later, only eight were left alive.

NATHANIEL PHILBRICK is the author of the international bestsellers In the Heart of the Sea, winner of the National Book Award, Mayflower, a finalist for the Pulitzer Prize, and Sea of Glory, winner of the Roosevelt Naval History Prize.

Remarkable Observations the Whaling Journal of Peleg Folger 1751-54. Nathaniel Philbrick, Peleg Folger.

The book was published by Viking Press on May 8, 2000, and won the 2000 National Book Award for Nonfiction

The book was published by Viking Press on May 8, 2000, and won the 2000 National Book Award for Nonfiction. Nathaniel Philbrick's sources included narratives written by three members of the crew of the Essex as well as numerous psychological and biological scientific studies that could approximate the extreme conditions experienced by the men at different points of the journey