globalization’s terrestrial exchanges. Her seventh chapter, “Surprising Journeys,” places seafaring in an exalted place as a segue into her culminating chapter. Indeed, the final chapter ends by calling attention to China’s role, since the year 1000, in the long history of trans-oceanic trade occurring in what is termed the Persian GulfChina sea corridor—a corridor that was open for nearly half a millennium before Europe’s Age of Discovery began. Usually, this is the place in a review where one expects to find a description of the book’s shortcomings. In this instance, however, such an effort is generally unwarranted. It is true that in some areas, the evidence of cross-cultural contact is more robust than others. For example, using hieroglyphs from murals in Chichén Itzá as a source on the possibility of contact between Vikings and the Maya is somewhat less satisfying than having written records detailing inter-regional trade exchanges from Muslim and Chinese chroniclers. Nonetheless, the variety and volume of evidence is fascinating and, on the whole, inspires appreciation for a job well done. Chuck Steele, PhD Colorado Springs, Colorado Whaling Captains of Color: America’s First Meritocracy by Skip Finley. (Naval Institute Press, Annapolis, MD, 2020, 304pp, illus, notes, biblio, appen, index, isbn 978-1-6824-7509-6; $42hc) Between the 18th and 20th centuries, the American whaling industry was a place of incredibly dangerous work, and an occupation that required increasingly prolonged stretches of isolation from family and home community. Those who worked the floating blubber-rendering plants found themselves enclosed in a cramped world of violence, oily blood, and continual discomfort, the main enticement into which was the chance of a high payout at the journey’s end. This promise of great profit rarely proved to be true for most men involved in the industry, and thus for many a single voyage was more than enough for them to decide to never go a-whaling again. For those who did opt to make whaling a true career, such a choice was often driven by either a sense of familial duty or heritage, or the knowledge that the industry offered 52
them the greatest opportunities that they were likely to find. In Whaling Captains of Color: America’s First Meritocracy, Skip Finley delves into the lives of 52 men who entered the whaling industry due to the unique opportunities that it offered them and who managed to achieve the highest rank possible. These men came from diverse communities: a mixture of escaped slaves, free blacks, Native Americans, and Cape Verdeans. What unites their experiences for Finley is the fact that, while onshore, their skin color would have targeted them for ill treatment and little, if any, advancement in most industries. In the whaling industry, skill was valued above all else.
Finley traces the story of the whaling industry from the 1750s to the 1930s, showing how it developed, grew, and changed over the centuries. He also devotes individual chapters to more focused studies of such topics of interest as innovations within the industry, how a career in whaling stacked up against being enslaved, and the trials and tribulations faced by the whalers themselves. Here, he craftily and expertly weaves the stories of these whaling captains of color, allowing their stories to enhance the points that he seeks to make with every chapter, while also not allowing their individuality to be subsumed by the larger narrative. The most striking of these combinations very well might be the first chapter “Dynasty: 1778–1842,” in which he tells the story of Paul Cuffe—arguably the most well known and most influential whaling captain of color—and the whaling dynasty that he helped to create. Through tracing the story of the Cuffe and Wainer families, as well as whalers of color they SEA HISTORY 173, WINTER 2020–21