The epic story of the "iron men in wooden boats" who built an industrial empire through the pursuit of whales.
Leviathan selected as one of the best nonfiction books of 2007 by The Los Angeles Times, The Boston Globe, and The Providence Journal. Leviathan was also chosen by Amazon.com's editors as one of the 10 best history books of 2007.
Eric Jay Dolin was awarded the 23rd annual (2007) L. Byrne Waterman Award, by the New Bedford Whaling Museum, for outstanding contributions to whaling research and history, for the publication of Leviathan.
"The best history of American whaling to come along in a generation"
"I thought I learned everything I needed to know about whaling from Melville, but I was wrong. . . . The excitement of the stories in this magnificently researched saga build and build . . . I read every word."
"Mr. Dolin handles this long, complex tale with great skill, both as a historian and as a writer . . . Leviathan is thoroughly engaging even as American whaling is becalmed in the 20th century, a ghost of a once great American industry, perhaps the most romantic in the country's business history."
"Leviathan is an exhaustive, richly detailed history of industrial American whaling. . . . Dolin succeeds admirably at what he sets out to do: tell the story of one of the strangest industries in American history."
Eric Jay Dolin was awarded the 23rd annual (2007) L. Byrne Waterman Award, by the New Bedford Whaling Museum, for outstanding contributions to whaling research and history, for the publication of Leviathan.
"The best history of American whaling to come along in a generation"
- Nathaniel Philbrick,
author of In The Heart of the Sea & Mayflower
author of In The Heart of the Sea & Mayflower
"I thought I learned everything I needed to know about whaling from Melville, but I was wrong. . . . The excitement of the stories in this magnificently researched saga build and build . . . I read every word."
– Dava Sobel,
author of Longitude & Galileo's Daughter
author of Longitude & Galileo's Daughter
"Mr. Dolin handles this long, complex tale with great skill, both as a historian and as a writer . . . Leviathan is thoroughly engaging even as American whaling is becalmed in the 20th century, a ghost of a once great American industry, perhaps the most romantic in the country's business history."
– John Steele Gordon, The Wall Street Journal
"Leviathan is an exhaustive, richly detailed history of industrial American whaling. . . . Dolin succeeds admirably at what he sets out to do: tell the story of one of the strangest industries in American history."
– Bruce Barcott, New York Times, Sunday Book Review
© 2007 Eric Jay Dolin