The Loss of the Ship Essex, Sunk by a Whale

Nathaniel Philbrick was born in Boston Massachusetts on June 11, 1956. He received a bachelor's degree in English from Brown University and a master's degree in American literature from Duke University. In 1978, he was Brown University's first Intercollegiate All-American sailor and he won the Sunfish North Americans in Barrington, Rhode Island. After graduate school, he worked for four years at Sailing World magazine. Afterward, he worked as a freelancer for a number of years and wrote/edited several sailing books including Yachting: A Parody.

After moving to Nantucket in 1986, he became interested in the history of the island and wrote Away Off Shore: Nantucket Island and Its People. In 2000 he published In the Heart of the Sea: The Tragedy of the Whaleship Essex. A motion picture of the book was released in December 2015. His other books include Sea of Glory: America's Voyage of Discovery, The U.S. Exploring Expedition; Mayflower: A Story of Courage, Community, and War; The Last Stand: Custer, Sitting Bull, and the Battle of the Little Bighorn; Bunker Hill: A City, A Siege, A Revolution; Valiant Ambition: George Washington, Benedict Arnold, and the Fate of the American Revolution, and In the Hurricane's Eye: The Genius of George Washington and the Victory at Yorktown.

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