Oil and Ice
A Story of Arctic Disaster and the Rise and Fall of America's Last Whaling Dynasty
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- £9.49
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- £9.49
Publisher Description
"Peter Nichols has crafted a terrifyingly relevant historical narrative...A terrific read."
-Nathaniel Philbrick, author of In The Heart of the Sea
In 1871, America's last fleet of whaling ships was destroyed in an arctic ice storm. Miraculously, 1,218 men, women and children survived, but the disaster was catastrophic at home.
Oil and Ice is the story of one fateful whaling season that illuminates the unprecedented rise and devastating fall of America's first oil economy, and the fate of today's petroleum industry.
PUBLISHERS WEEKLY
Chronicling the downfall of the vast whaling industry developed in New England over the 18th and 19th centuries, author Nichols (A Voyage for Madmen) presents both an illuminating portrait of Quaker life and industry, and a heart-pounding tale of danger on the open sea. Nichols has a rich understanding of the whale oil ("oyl") industry, and recreates the atmosphere of whaling voyages and villages, particularly wealthy New Bedford, Mass., in sensuous detail: "Emissions of greasy particulate settled over the town like a glaze and gave it the permanent odor of burnt flesh and fat." A collection of ships' logbooks and letters from whaling captains give character to the phenomenal victories and challenges the seamen-and their family-faced. There is a lot to admire in the whalers; their captains "were master mariners and navigators, among the canniest and most skillful in human history," and their task enormous. Although death and loss were common in the hunt, the 1871 season recounted here marked the beginning of the end for the oyl industry, a major disaster in which an entire fleet was caught in a diabolical arctic weather system.
