San Antonio College Library

The epic history of the "iron men in wooden boats" who built an industrial empire through the pursuit of whales. Few things can capture the sheer danger and desperation of men on the deep sea as dramatically as whaling. Environmental writer Dolin chronicles the rise of a burgeoning industry, from its brutal struggles during the Revolutionary period to its golden age in the mid-1800s when a fleet of more than 700 ships hunted the seas and American...

Concentrates on the fur seals of the Bering Sea and the harp seals of the Newfoundland hunt. Reveals the consequences of an industry's killing of more than 50,000,000 seals in a century and a half.