Nathaniel Philbrick

"[T]he true events behind Moby Dick ... In 1820, the whaleship Essex was rammed and sunk by an angry sperm whale, leaving the desperate crew to drift for more than ninety days in three tiny boats. Nathaniel Philbrick uses little-known documents and vivid details about the Nantucket whaling tradition to reveal the chilling facts of this infamous maritime disaster. In the Heart of the Sea?and now, its epic adaptation for the screen?will forever place...

"Does George Washington still matter? The bestselling author argues for his unique contribution to the forging of America by retracing his journey as a new President through the former colonies, now an unsure nation. A new first-person voice for Philbrick, weaving history and personal reflection into one narrative. When George Washington became president in 1798, the United States of America was still a loose and quarrelsome confederation and a tentative...

Boston in 1775 is an island city occupied by British troops after a series of incendiary incidents by patriots who range from sober citizens to thuggish vigilantes. After the Boston Tea Party, British and American soldiers and Massachusetts residents have warily maneuvered around each other until April 19, when violence finally erupts at Lexington and Concord. In June, skirmishes give way to outright war in the Battle of Bunker Hill. It would be the...

Shares expert guidelines on how to read and appreciate Herman Melville's classic work, offering insight into its history, characters, and themes while explaining its literary relevance in the modern world.

"The American Revolution may have been started by a group of citizen-soldiers on a green in Lexington, Massachusetts, but it was won on a choppy patch of water off Chesapeake Bay. In Bunker Hill and Valiant Ambition, Nathaniel Philbrick gave us a new and provocative way of looking at the war that created the United States. His latest book is the capstone of that enterprise, focusing on the last year of the war, and is the culmination of Philbrick's...

"A treasure of a book."—David McCullough
The harrowing story of a pathbreaking naval expedition that set out to map the entire Pacific Ocean, dwarfing Lewis and Clark with its discoveries, from the New York Times bestselling author of Valiant Ambition and In the Hurricane's Eye.

A New York Times Notable Book
America's first frontier was not the West; it was the sea, and no one writes more...

Twelve-year-old Benjamin Russell of Boston experiences the Revolutionary War from the Boston Tea Party of 1773 through the Declaration of Independence in 1776. Includes historical note.

In 1820, the Nantucket whaleship "Essex", thousands of miles from home in the South Pacific, was rammed by an angry sperm whale. The ship sank, leaving 20 crew members floating in three small boats. The incident provided the inspiration for Melville's masterpiece, "Moby Dick". A riveting tale of history and true-life adventure, this classic edition combines first-person narratives of the doomed voyage of the whaleship with every relevant contemporary...