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Barons of the Sea
And their Race to Build the World's Fastest Clipper Ship
1 of 1 copy available
There was a time, back when the United States was young and the robber barons were just starting to come into their own, when fortunes were made and lost importing luxury goods from China. It was a secretive, glamorous, often brutal business—one where teas and silks and porcelain were purchased with profits from the opium trade. But the journey by sea to New York from Canton could take six agonizing months, and so the most pressing technological challenge of the day became ensuring one's goods arrived first to market, so they might fetch the highest price.
"With the verse of a natural dramatist" (The Christian Science Monitor), Steven Ujifusa tells the story of a handful of cutthroat competitors who raced to build the fastest, finest, most profitable clipper ships to carry their precious cargo to American shores. They were visionary, eccentric shipbuilders, debonair captains, and socially ambitious merchants with names like Forbes and Delano—men whose business interests took them from the cloistered confines of China's expatriate communities to the sin city decadence of Gold Rush-era San Francisco, and from the teeming hubbub of East Boston's shipyards and to the lavish sitting rooms of New York's Hudson Valley estates.
Elegantly written and meticulously researched, Barons of the Sea is a riveting tale of innovation and ingenuity that "takes the reader on a rare and intoxicating journey back in time" (Candice Millard, bestselling author of Hero of the Empire), drawing back the curtain on the making of some of the nation's greatest fortunes, and the rise and fall of an all-American industry as sordid as it was genteel.
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Creators
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Publisher
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Release date
July 17, 2018 -
Formats
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OverDrive Listen audiobook
- ISBN: 9781508257349
- File size: 358113 KB
- Duration: 12:26:04
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Languages
- English
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Reviews
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Arthur Morey narrates as if he's simply telling a story, and he puts the story first. Direct and engaging, matching sound and sense and controlling emphasis and pacing with effortless naturalness, he's like a knowledgeable friend talking directly to us, clearly and without affectation. Ujifusa's novelistic history of the early to mid-nineteenth-century China trade; how certain Americans, such as the Delano family (the "D" in FDR), grew rich in it; and the race to build and sail the fastest clippers is at times unfocused and burdened with too many names and details to keep easy track of. But the audiobook is informative, and Morey conveys the information with intelligence and skill. We have nothing to do but listen, learn, and enjoy. W.M. © AudioFile 2018, Portland, Maine -
May 7, 2018
Ujifusa (A Man and His Ship) reconstructs the lavish social milieu of Yankee shipping magnates in this account of how clipper ships unlocked a new world of risk and riches in the mid-19th century. In the aftermath of the First Opium War, American merchants like Warren Delano and Robert Forbes sought to exploit the newly opened China trade by launching swift clipper ships that would bring tea from China to New York in less than 100 days. With their combination of sharp-ended hulls and flat bottoms, ships based on the Baltimore clipper model combined speed and cargo capacity, providing a unique solution to the needs of New York’s merchant elite. Crisscrossing the globe from New York to Hong Kong and California, the clipper ships and their voyages were the threads that bound together families like the Delanos and the Forbeses in complex webs of commerce and matrimony. Ujifusa is adept at evoking both the monotony and danger of sea voyages, where long days subsisting on salted beef and hard tack might be disrupted by “a solid wall of water” bearing down on a ship. Weaving together details of shipboard life, supporting figures, and the revolutionary changes brought about by clipper ships, this tale of industry will appeal to seafaring and commerce enthusiasts. Agent: Becky Sweren, Aevitas Creative Management.
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