Sea of Glory: America's Voyage of D iscovery, The US Exploring Expedition, 1838-1842, by Nathaniel Philbrick
eminently "readable," interspersing passages from contemporary letters, journals, and logs with his narrative. W hile not an(Viking Penguin, New York, 2003, 452pp, notated per se, rhe text includes notes on illus, maps, notes, biblio , index, ISBN 0- each chapter, which serve to amplify and, in some cases, explain how certain conclu670-0323 1-X; $27.95hc) Perhaps the greatest "voyage of discov- sions and outcomes came to be. ery"- even greater than the well-known For anyone with an interest in the and still celebra ted Lewis and C lark voyage saga of American exploration, political of discovery-was the relaclimate (not that much differe nt from today!), and tively unknown, and surely, not celeb rated , voyage of the human behavio r, both at US Exploring Expedition its worst and ar irs best, this Ju lht• Heart of the Sett of 1838- 1842. A group of book is a must. It is revelasix ships, under the comtory and fasci nating while maintaining th e easy style mand of an ego-maniacal of for which Philbrick has beand brash young lieutenant named C harles W ilkes, set come known. out upon the western seas to W I L LIAM H. W HITE discover, claim, char t, and Rumson New Jersey catalogue the lands of the Pacific Ocean from the CoThe Barbary Corsairs: lumbia River in the north Warfare in the Mediterto the ice fields of the south. They accom- ranean, 1480-1580, by Jacques H eers, plished this amazing feat and much more, translated by Jonathan North, (Stackpole rerurning to rhe Unired Srares fo ur years Books, Mechanicsburg, PA, 2003, 272pp, larer, to a co untry whose political agenda illus, notes, biblio, index, ISBN 1-85367h ad changed and where controversy and 552-0; $34.95 hc) It is difficult to write a comp rehencriticism mer them at every turn. W ilkes had so alienated his officers sive book about the Barbary corsairs who and crews that he unquestionably under- provided the O tto man Empi re with naval mined his incredible acco mplishments. fo rces to harass its Euro pean rivals in the His unquenchable need fo r recognition, fifteenth and sixteenth centuries. Such a constan t self-aggrandizement, his self-de- task is burdened by limited sources on the structive secrecy regarding his prodigious complex politics in N orth Africa, shifting feats and discoveries guaranteed rhat rhis European alliances, and the patchwork of fo ur-year odyssey wo uld be relegated to a Venetian, Genoese, Catalan, and Ottoman "back shelf " where few wo uld be allowed bases in the Mediterranean and Aegean . access. H eers, an eminent medievalist, does a masNathaniel Philbrick, best known fo r terful job weaving these various threads his splendid tale of the whaleship Essex (In into a colorful and in telligible historical 1he Heart of the Sea), has stayed true to narrative. Heers's co nclusions are sound. fo rm in presenting rhis amazi ng picture H e notes that no Barbary corsair could of not only the man, Charles W il kes, but flourish on the No rth African coast withrhe environment in which h e fo und him - our rhe Sultan's favo r, and that Suleiman self, and the thrilling discoveries (Wilkes skillfully deployed corsairs like Babarossa is credited for discovering Antarctica) he to raid the southern coast of Europe while and his ships made. W hile at times a bi t he was expanding in to central Euro pe. tedious, Sea of Glory points up rhe ex- Some surprising revelations emerge; fo r haustive research Philbrick has done on example, a number of oppressed people in his subj ecr, finding not only the archived Europe looked with favo r upon the co rmaterials from the "Ex. Ex.," bur previ- sairs and even joined rheir forces during ously unknown and , in one case, secret piratical raids. Not all C hristians living in journals and letters from a parti cipant. the Barbary Coast were captives, not all His style of writing is comfo rtable and captives became galley slaves, and life was
NATHANIEL PHILBRICK A.Tl'"._ ...
W''-"1 l '"
'nl
!\ATltl,AI llOOK A\\'ARO
SEA
GLORY
SEA HISTORY 107 , SPRING/SUMMER 2004
not necessarily harsh fo r either free or slave Christians who wound up in No rth Africa. The victory of Christian fo rces againsr the Sultan at the Battle of Lepan to in 157 1 had no long-term effect on the course of history. A few items needed further attention . Though there are several illustrations of vessels, historians interested in naval matters will fi nd details regarding ships and naval engagements insufficient and sometimes confusing. H eers noted, for example, that in 1534 eleven triremes conveyed a Turkish embassy to France. H e seems unaware that this type of vessel disappeared in the third century AD . Surely, the sudden appearance of an alleged squadro n of Ottoman tri remes, whatever these ships really were, needs some explanation. Furthermore, he generally neglects the wideranging operations of Barbary corsairs in the Aegean . O ne should, however, not quibble about such minor points. H opefully, one day a scholar of H eers's srarure will write a multi-volume study on the Mediterranean in the Age of Suleiman. For now we should be grateful fo r th is excellent book from which both scholars and the general reader will profit. ANTH ONY
J. P APALAS
Greenville, Nor th Carolina
Horatio Lord Nelson , by Brian Lavery (N ew York University Press, New York, 2003, 144pp, illus, photos, maps, glossary, index, ISBN 0-8 147-5 190-3 ; $2 1.95h c) I have read several books on Bri rai n's greatest hero, but this is by far the most concise in its clari ty and brevity. Illustrated with period documents, maps, pai ntings and drawings, Lavery's book gers to the point and stays there, offering a very human portrait of a larger than life character who was both flawed and magnificent, and in the end, a man of flesh and blood, not a sainted deity. Bringing Nelson down to earth only makes his sto ry more compelling because it lets us fully appreciate that this man acted our his incredible life in the real world not on some predestined storybook course to fame and glory. H e made mistakes and evoked controve rsy both in his professional and per41