Ahab's Rolling Sea: A Natural History of Moby-Dick
Nov 2019 · University of Chicago Press
1.0star
1 review
Ebook
439
Pages
family_home
Eligible
info
About this ebook
In this “invigorating study,” a maritime historian delves into the environmental and scientific concerns beneath the surface of Melville’s epic tale (Nature).
One of the most profound and enduring works of American fiction, Herman Melville’s Moby-Dick is also a landmark of nature writing. In conversation with the works of Emerson and Thoreau, this epic of the sea draws on Melville’s own travels to the Pacific. The author spent more than three years at sea before writing his masterpiece in 1851.
Ahab’s Rolling Sea is a chronological journey through the natural history of Melville’s novel. From white whales to whale intelligence, giant squids, barnacles, albatross, and sharks, Richard J. King examines what Melville knew from his own experiences and the sources available to a reader in the mid-1800s, exploring how and why Melville might have twisted what was known to serve his fiction. King then climbs to the crow’s nest, setting Melville in the context of the American perception of the ocean in 1851—at the very start of the Industrial Revolution and just before the publication of On the Origin of Species.
King compares Ahab’s and Ishmael’s worldviews to how we see the ocean today: an expanse still immortal and sublime, but also in crisis. Featuring a coffer of illustrations and an array of interviews with contemporary scientists, fishers, and whale watch operators, Ahab’s Rolling Sea offers new insight into a cherished masterwork, its adventurous author, and our own evolving relationship with the briny deep.
One of the most profound and enduring works of American fiction, Herman Melville’s Moby-Dick is also a landmark of nature writing. In conversation with the works of Emerson and Thoreau, this epic of the sea draws on Melville’s own travels to the Pacific. The author spent more than three years at sea before writing his masterpiece in 1851.
Ahab’s Rolling Sea is a chronological journey through the natural history of Melville’s novel. From white whales to whale intelligence, giant squids, barnacles, albatross, and sharks, Richard J. King examines what Melville knew from his own experiences and the sources available to a reader in the mid-1800s, exploring how and why Melville might have twisted what was known to serve his fiction. King then climbs to the crow’s nest, setting Melville in the context of the American perception of the ocean in 1851—at the very start of the Industrial Revolution and just before the publication of On the Origin of Species.
King compares Ahab’s and Ishmael’s worldviews to how we see the ocean today: an expanse still immortal and sublime, but also in crisis. Featuring a coffer of illustrations and an array of interviews with contemporary scientists, fishers, and whale watch operators, Ahab’s Rolling Sea offers new insight into a cherished masterwork, its adventurous author, and our own evolving relationship with the briny deep.
Ratings and reviews
1.0
1 review
lawrence guinchard
- Flag inappropriate
December 12, 2019
I can't review this book as I can't read it on Google Books; Google Books is unable to display the book for more than a few seconds.
About the author
Richard J. King is visiting associate professor of maritime literature and history at the Sea Education Association in Woods Hole, Massachusetts. For more than twenty years he has been sailing and teaching aboard tall ships in the Atlantic and Pacific Oceans. He writes and illustrates a column on marine animals for Sea History magazine, edits the “Searchable Sea Literature” website, and was the founding series editor of Seafaring America. He is the author of Lobster and The Devil’s Cormorant: A Natural History. For more information, visit http://www.richardjking.info/.
Rate this ebook
Tell us what you think.
Reading information
Smartphones and tablets
Install the Google Play Books app for Android and iPad/iPhone. It syncs automatically with your account and allows you to read online or offline wherever you are.
Laptops and computers
You can listen to audiobooks purchased on Google Play using your computer's web browser.
eReaders and other devices
To read on e-ink devices like Kobo eReaders, you'll need to download a file and transfer it to your device. Follow the detailed Help Center instructions to transfer the files to supported eReaders.
