One my my recent book reviews was on The Last Stand by Nathaniel Philbrick. Since I had purchased a few of his books, Amazon recommended one of his older works titled Sea of Glory. I decided to give it a try.
The book tells the story of the U.S. Exploring Expedition of 1838-1842, an ambitious effort to map the Pacific and discover Antarctica (which, arguably, they did). This expedition is truly amazing. It departed from New York harbor, sailed to Brazil, then on to Antarctica. It headed West to the Pacific islands of Fiji and Tonga, then on to Hawaii. From there it went East to present day Seattle, and down the Pacific Coast. Eventually, back to New York. The scientists on this expedition brought back so many items that it was later part of the inspiration for the Smithsonian. The cartographers created charts and maps that were used until World War II. Clearly, a successful expedition!
But for me, the book wasn’t all that great. A marvelous story to be sure, but the book itself was underwhelming. To be fair, I’m not a big fan of naval stories. Nothing against them … they just aren’t all that interesting to me. Also, I’ve found that reading the same author twice in a short period of time can grow stale. Philbrick has a tendency to focus on the dysfunction of a team, especially the officers. Sea of Glory has much the same theme running through it, and it even ends with a general court martial of many of the participants. So, the repetitive themes were tiresome to me.
That doesn’t mean it’s a bad book. It is well written and insightful. It offers descriptive narration of what must have been spectacular discoveries for the men on the expedition. And it tells a forgotten story that deserves a book of it’s own.
So, if you like historical books that focus on naval adventure, you’ll enjoy this. Otherwise … not so much.
