Sea of Glory: America's Voyage of Discovery, the U.S. Exploring Expedition, 1838

商家名称	信用等级	购买信息	订购本书
		Sea of Glory: America's Voyage of Discovery, the U.S. Exploring Expedition, 1838
		Sea of Glory: America's Voyage of Discovery, the U.S. Exploring Expedition, 1838

基本信息·出版社：Viking Adult
·页码：480 页
·出版日期：2003年11月
·ISBN：067003231X
·International Standard Book Number：067003231X
·条形码：9780670032310
·EAN：9780670032310
·装帧：精装
·正文语种：英语

内容简介 In 1838, the U.S. government launched the largest discovery voyage the Western world had ever seen-6 sailing vessels and 346 men bound for the waters of the Pacific Ocean. Four years later, the U.S. Exploring Expedition, or Ex. Ex. as it was known, returned with an astounding array of accomplishments and discoveries: 87,000 miles logged, 280 Pacific islands surveyed, 4,000 zoological specimens collected, including 2,000 new species, and the discovery of the continent of Antarctica. And yet at a human level, the project was a disaster-not only had 28 men died and 2 ships been lost, but a series of sensational courts-martial had also ensued that pitted the expedition's controversial leader, Lieutenant Charles Wilkes, against almost every officer under his command.

Though comparable in importance and breadth of success to the Lewis and Clark Expedition, the Ex. Ex. has been largely forgotten. Now, the celebrated Nathaniel Philbrick re-creates this chapter of American maritime history in all its triumph and scandal.

Like the award-winning In the Heart of the Sea, Sea of Glory combines meticulous history with spellbinding human drama as it circles the globe from the palm-fringed beaches of the South Pacific to the treacherous waters off Antarctica and to the stunning beauty of the Pacific Northwest, and, finally, to a court-martial aboard a ship of the line anchored off New York City.
作者简介 Nathaniel Philbrick, author of the National Book Award-winning bestseller In the Heart of the Sea, is director of the Egan Institute of Maritime Studies and a research fellow at the Nantucket Historical Association. He is a leading authority on the history of Nantucket and a champion sailboat racer.
媒体推荐 The ultimate in fact-based sea stories...a rare blend of history, heroics, and gut-ripping emotion. -- Kirkus Review
编辑推荐 The expeditions of Magellan, Columbus, and Lewis and Clark have been well documented and are instantly familiar to anyone with even a passing interest in world history. But the average person is likely unaware of the U.S. Exploring Expedition or its mercurial leader, Charles Wilkes. This despite the numerous accomplishments and lasting legacy of the massive four-year project that involved six ships and hundreds of men. The "Ex. Ex.," as it came to be known, is credited with the discovery of Antarctica, the first accurate charting of what is now Oregon and Washington, the retrieval of thousands of new species of life, and the foundation of the Smithsonian Institution. Yet when Wilkes returned, instead of being hailed as a great man of science or a national hero, he was shunned by the President, ignored by the press, and was the subject of so much ill will on the part of his men that he was ultimately put on trial for a variety of offenses. In the portrayal presented in Nathaniel Philbrick's Sea of Glory, Wilkes is a passionate man, brash and enthusiastic, driven by seemingly impossible goals, many of which he actually accomplished. But he's also a petty, mean-spirited loner, egotistical enough to unilaterally give himself a promotion in the middle of the expedition. Without Wilkes' singularity of purpose, it's hard to imagine the mission being as successful as it was, but it's also hard to conceive a personality more poorly suited to leadership than the near-universally-despised Wilkes. Philbrick also skillfully reveals the insecurity behind the tyranny in excerpts from letters to Wilkes' wife, Jane. The accounts of the expedition's adventures are at various times exhilarating and tragic as the crew scales the volcanoes of Hawaii, becomes involved in a bloody war with Fijian natives, and struggles merely to stay alive while at the same time not killing Wilkes. Philbrick's compelling narrative and meticulous research provide a vivid picture of the triumphs and hardships of the exploration age. --John Moe
专业书评 From Publishers Weekly

After chronicling the sinking of the whaleship Essex in In the Heart of the Sea, Philbrick attempts to rescue from obscurity the U.S. Exploring Expedition's 1838-1842 circumnavigation of the world and its cartographic and scientific accomplishments. With a strong narrative pull but an anticlimactic story arc, he chronicles the six-vessel squadron's Pacific escapades. Instead of a grisly page-turner, however, Philbrick follows his bestselling tragedy with a drawn-out success story. More than a tale of the Ex. Ex's journey, the book also profiles the expedition's egomaniacal commander, Lt. Charles Wilkes; the psychological warfare he waged against his officers; and the near-miraculous survival of the squadron despite Wilkes's perverse leadership and lack of nautical experience. Wilkes was, however, an accomplished surveyor, and the Ex. Ex. mapped hundreds of Pacific islands, 800 miles of the Oregon coast, 100 miles of the Columbia River and 1,500 miles of Antarctic coast. The expedition's scientists made groundbreaking contributions in ethnography, biology and geology (their collections formed the basis of the Smithsonian Institution). Particularly noteworthy among Philbrick's gripping passages are his descriptions of brash navigation in the Antarctic-but too much of the book bogs down in Wilkes's petty politicking, as he degraded talented men and promoted incompetent ones so as not to be outshone. After four years at sea, he had alienated nearly every officer and returned home to a court-martial. "Instead of a thrilling tale of discovery and incredible achievement, [America] heard more about the flawed personality of the Expedition's commander than anyone wanted to know," Philbrick writes of Wilkes's 1842 trial, in which he was acquitted. Unfortunately, this spoils the retelling, too. Maps not seen by PW.
Copyright 2003 Reed Business Information, Inc.

From Booklist

Philbrick, director of the Egan Institute of Maritime Studies, is the author of the best-selling In the Heart of the Sea: The Tragedy of the Whaleship Essex (2000), which won the National Book Award. His new book is concerned with "America's forgotten frontier, the Pacific Ocean." Specifically, he follows the dramatic story of the U.S. Exploring Expedition, which set out in 1838 in six sailing vessels, from Norfolk, Virginia, on a research voyage that would last four significant years. Their mission was "to scour the Southern Hemisphere of the earth for new lands," and by the expedition's end, it "had made discoveries that would redraw the map of the world" and put the U.S. on the map as a world leader in scientific explorations. Philbrick's exciting account is also a character study of the expedition's leader, Lieutenant Charles Wilkes, a "tormented, problematic figure." The story of this expedition is by definition a big one, in terms of both its objectives and accomplishments, and it is rendered here in all its largeness. Couched in the author's fluid prose style, it cannot fail to absorb readers in all of its detail. Brad Hooper
Copyright © American Library Association. All rights reserved

From School Library Journal

Robert Saunderson, Berkeley Public Library, CA
Copyright © Reed Business Information, a division of Reed Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.

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