Harpoon: Into the Heart of Whaling (Merloyd Lawrence Book) |  | Author: Andrew Darby
Publisher: Da Capo Press
Category: Book
List Price: $25.00
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Rating:  4 reviews
Media: Hardcover
Pages: 320
Number Of Items: 1
Shipping Weight (lbs): 1.1
Dimensions (in): 9 x 6.1 x 1.2
ISBN: 0306816296
Dewey Decimal Number: 639.28
EAN: 9780306816291
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Product Description
The awe-inspiring history of whales and whaling, and today's epic struggle to end the slaughter. From one-hundred-fifty-ton barnacled Blues to the sleek, embattled Minke, whales have been hunted worldwide to near extinction. Despite efforts to halt the killing, the future of these majestic mammals--known as "mind in the water"--is again in jeopardy. With passion and engaging detail, Andrew Darby profiles each species of whale and its place in this great drama. From the wooden harpoons of aboriginals in "cockleshell" vessels, to the high-tech killing machines of today's lawless Russian whalers and smooth-talking Japanese "scientific" crews, Darby chronicles the evolving pursuit of whales and its significance to our humanity. Fans of well-written history, as well as those fascinated by whales and the fierce international conflict surrounding them, will be swept into the very heart of whaling.
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| Customer Reviews:
A Great History Read May 29, 2008
J. D. MacGregor (Cincinnati, OH USA)
5 out of 5 found this review helpful
"Harpoon" does a wonderful job of exploring whaling from the hey day of the 19th century to the factory fleets of the mid 20th to the current days of "scientific" whaling.
The book is roughly broken into sections according to whale species, and one of the best parts of "Harpoon" is reading about the different major whale species. Darby gives us a glimpse into the lives of these whales, from the days when one could see Right whales off the Australian coasts every day up until the current day, when scientific seach planes are hard pressed to find them.
In addition to telling us the whales, and the nuts and bolts of whaling itself, Darby follows the evolution of the International Whaling Committee, and all the diplomatic drama around trying to preserve, utilize, and protect the world's whales.
This was an incredibly informative book, and not a page went by where I didn't learn something new. While very anti-whaling, Darby does not demonize whalers themselves, up to the point of interviewing retired whalers themselves. This is an excellent read anyone who is interested in whales, whaling, or nautical history would enjoy.
A survey of international debates about whaling and its ethics July 14, 2008
Midwest Book Review (Oregon, WI USA)
3 out of 3 found this review helpful
Societies have hunted whales over the centuries. In "Harpoon: Into the Heart of Whaling" environmental reporter Andrew Darby covers the history of the commercial whaling industry around the world, from early wooden arrows to the grenade-tipped harpoons of the Japanese industry. Even more important is a survey of international debates about whaling and its ethics, making "Harpoon: Into the Heart of Whaling" a top pick for any library strong in environmental history.
Diane C. Donovan
California Bookwatch
Review of "Harpoon: Into the Heart of Whaling" December 12, 2009
Mark J. Palmer (San Francisco, CA)
0 out of 1 found this review helpful
Book Review: "Harpoon: Into the Heart of Whaling" by Andrew Darby, De Capo Press, Cambridge MA, 300 pp.
By Mark J. Palmer
Associate Director
International Marine Mammal Project
Earth Island Institute
Berkeley, CA
Andrew Darby is a reporter from Tasmania who has followed environmental issues for a variety of newspapers in Australia. One of the best-informed journalists on whaling issues, Darby has been following the meetings of the International Whaling Commission (IWC) for many years.
His new book "Harpoon: Into the Heart of Whaling" is a detailed history of the IWC up to 2007. The IWC was established in 1949 with the dual (and diametrically opposed) purposes of protecting whales and promoting the whaling industry.
In its first few decades, the IWC was largely a club for the whaling industry to divvy up whale stocks, particularly in the rich waters of the Antarctic Ocean, for the annual slaughter. With the advent of Earth Day 1970, whales became the international symbol of all the greed, anti-science, and ignorance humans have used to exploit natural "resources". The cry of "Save the Whales" led to many countries, including the US, UK, Australia, and South Africa, to drop their whaling industry and instead advocate at the IWC for protection of whales. In 1982, a resolution was finally passed with three-quarters majority voting to end all commercial whaling for a long-term moratorium (the resolution went into effect in the 1985-86 Antarctic season).
Unfortunately, under the IWC Convention, there are many loopholes through which the now diminished whaling industry could drive their catcher-boats. Norway and later Iceland continued whaling under provisions allowing a country to file an "objection" to any restrictions whatsoever in the IWC regulations. Japan became even more creative, switching from killing whales for commerce to killing the same whales for "scientific research," in which (in order not to "waste" the meat) the dead carcasses resulting from this lethal (and quite unnecessary) "research" wound up in supermarkets anyway.
In more recent years, the balance of conservation versus exploitation in the IWC has been shifting back and forth, with Japan literally bribing many small, third-world nations with millions of yen in fisheries aid to join the IWC and support the position of Japan in favor of whaling (including such unlikely pro-whaling countries as Mali and Mongolia, neither of which has a shoreline).
Darby discusses these events in detail, being a journalist observer in the annual IWC meetings and a researcher roaming the world to get answers to some of the questions raised by the fight over whaling. He includes extensive documentation of his work in the Notes section of the book.
Like all such "up-to-the-minute" books, "Harpoon" necessarily ends in mid-stream, with further machinations on the horizon for the IWC, as outlined in Darby's Epilogue. There will likely be many more opportunities in the future to add to further editions of "Harpoon."
For those interested in the latest maneuvering by conservationists and whalers alike, "Harpoon" provides the best description of the problems of the IWC, surely one of the worst examples of international cooperation on our planet. It presents insights into the difficulty of maintaining our oceans as healthy ecosystems while economic engines of destruction continue to grind away. Highly recommended!
 Interesting anecdotes January 21, 2009
D. J. Nardi (Washington, DC)
1 out of 1 found this review helpful
This is a very interesting book about the debates at the International Whaling Commission. Particularly insightful are the sections on Soviet and Japanese whaling. While expressing his own anti-whaling preferences, Darby tries to express the Japanese whaling position for his readers. He goes beyond the news to explain the national interests and philosophies driving Japan. My only wish is that the author had focused more on these issues rather than other topics he addresses, such as Australian whaling.
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