Publisher's Synopsis
Gladiator one minute, galley slave the next; danger and abuse, excitement and tedium were the lot of the open-boat whalemen in the South Seas for more than two centuries. This book tracks the rise and fall of this first truly global industry, telling the stories of the men who made it. Although they whaled in American, British, French, Australian and New Zealand ships, their calling made them citizens of a separate, closed and isolated world, unlike that even of other seamen. The book describes that world and its unique pressures.
