The publication in 2007 of several serious and well-researched books about whaling-including works by Eric Dolin, Peter Heller, and James Estes et al. (1-3)-attests to our fascination with hunting the largest animals known to have lived. This fascination is undoubtedly what drew many men to the wretched business of whaling, with its perils and inhumane conditions. What stands out about Andrew Darby's Harpoon is that he spares nothing in his descriptions of the butchering of whales. Whereas Dolin relates an objective history of whaling, Darby clearly stands in defense of whales and for the vilification of their hunters. He makes a good case. The book gives readers the sense of being let in on a secret world of high-stakes conservation politics being played out through international diplomacy. Darby (an Australian environmental journalist) provokes this same sense of otherworldliness as he describes whale hunts and the means by which whalers slaughtered whales.
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