| ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
Did you know you can trade in your old books for an Amazon.co.uk Gift Card to spend on the things you want? Plus, get an extra £5 Gift Certificate when you trade in books worth £10 or more before June 30, 2012. Visit the Books Trade-In Store for more details. |
Frequently Bought Together
Product details
|
More About the Author
Product Description
Amazon.co.uk Review
The trouble with this book is that there seems to be too many different tales to tell and the author struggles to keep up with her narrative. Like a lost ship we set sail in one direction only to back-track and recover the same course over again. The promised treasure--why Christian really did it--is never found. Readers wanting a clearer and simpler chart might be better advised to read Captain Bligh's own famous account, and Edward Christian's defence of his brother The Bounty Mutiny and then follow-up with Greg Dening's book, Mr Bligh's Bad Language. --Miles Taylor --This text refers to an out of print or unavailable edition of this title.
Review
‘With this and her previous book, The Endurance, she has made the wondrous genre of open-boat-voyage narratives still more wondrous…This sounds like Conrad writing. A sea mist hangs over this age-old tale. Alexander dispels it, to the reader’s fascination. But when the facts are told and the fates of the cast duly chronicled, the sea mist settles in again, as impenetrable and yet more interesting than it has ever been.’ New York Times Book Review
‘Alexander…handles the story with great thoroughness and calm. She appears to have unearthed and examined every possible shred of evidence, and it is difficult to imagine that this will not long remain the definitive account…what Alexander does here superbly, what is new to this account, and what makes this simple story worth examining in such detail, is her revelation of how the myth grew from unsubstantiated scraps, who founded and nourished it, and why.’ Peter Nichols, Sunday Times
‘This book should find an enduring place as the definitive rendering, and its appearance should elevate Caroline Alexander to the ranks of the finest historians of teh most romantic, and most romanticised, period in British Imperial history.’ Simon Winchester, Daily Telegraph
‘Alexander profiles history’s most famous mutiny in the same stylish manner she brought to Shackleton’s Antarctic expedition in The Endurance…A great sea story, surpassed perhaps only by the Odyssey, handled with dexterity to capture characters and circumstances with faithfulness to the record and a steady feeling of anticipation for history in the making.’ Kirkus Reviews
Tags Customers Associate with This Product(What's this?)Click on a tag to find related items, discussions, and people.
|
What Other Items Do Customers Buy After Viewing This Item?
Customer Reviews
What distinguishes this book is its exploration of the social and cultural web relationships in England that were ultimately responsible for shaping how we see events that occurred far away in what was then literally the end of the world with only a few surviving witnesses -- all of whom had vital interests in how those events were interpreted. Alexander's extensive use of primary sources brings authenticity and immediacy to the story, and here careful avoidance of trying to play detective engages the reader: she lays out quite a bit of evidence and we are left to puzzle out what it means. This is refreshing, as is her through coverage of not only the events on the bounty, but the evolution of the mutineer's settlement on Pitcairn, the voyage of the Pandora, the court marshal proceedings, and the ultimate fates off the entire Bounty crew.
Only one minor complaint, which is really not unique to this book, but ultimately makes it much harder to read than it ought to be: because of the tremendous expanse of space and time covered by the events of the Bounty saga, and especially because of the extensive treatment of the web of players, relations, patrons, and other interested parties in the mutiny story, this book could have benefited greatly from more and better maps (there are only three and these are sparsely labeled and mostly decorative) and from some tables (the closest one comes is a simple crew manifest) and charts depicting the social networks.
But the captain is unceremoniously relieved of his command and cast adrift in the ship's launch with a handful of loyalists to a certain death on the high seas (or so the mutineers believed) when things turn nasty not far from Tahiti. But, the captain and his band of fellows makes his way to a Dutch trading post-cum-settlement in Timor where they are received honourably and given safe passage to Batavia, Java, the principal trading station in the Dutch East Indies. After the mutiny one faction on board the Bounty is returned to Tahiti where they settle. The remainder, including Fletcher Christian, eventually wash up in Pitcairn where the survivors were found decades later (a story in itself).
The first seeds of rebellion were sown nine months from port, and six months previously, in Adventure Bay, Van Diemen's Land (Tasmania) when Bligh ticked off his carpenter - not the first of his officers to be lashed by his tongue during the voyage - William Purcell during a "wooding" expedition on shore. Apparently his billets of timber were "too long" and he responded "insolently" to Bligh's criticisms (the captain should have left well alone if you ask me) ... But Bligh is generally bad tempered and the mutiny is eventually precipitated one night after Bligh harangues his officers about the theft of coconuts and calls them "dogs", "scoundrels" and "villains".
Alexander takes us effortlessly from the south seas, via provincial England and its intrigues and intricate web of family connections which binds many of the protagonists in this saga, to the court-martial aboard the HMS Duke in Portsmouth Harbour where the mutineers apprehended at Tahiti are tried for their lives. There follows probably one of the best and most lucid courtroom dramas that has appeared anywhere in print. Alexander writes beautifully and substantiates her claims and hypotheses quoting from primary sources such as the captain's log and various other contemporary memoirs and diaries written by the mutineers, their families and other contemporaries with a connection to the story.
This book is so much more than just the Bounty and the mutiny; it's an evocative look at the ordinary life of a seafarer of the day, and a history of that era of exploration and adventure when Britain's navy was emerging to rule the waves and establish the first outposts of what would become a great empire.
This is simply one of the best non-fiction books I have ever read. Superbly well crafted, it reads like a top quality novel. Caroline Alexander carefully unfolds the drama of the Bounty, the open-boat journey that turned Bligh into a national hero and the subsequent investigations, the recapture of the mutineers and the court martials. Her narrative is packed with well researched facts ,rich in detail,that bring the story to life. The personal story of each mutineer is revealed to explain some of the rather unexpected verdicts. This is a masterpiece of scholarly research.
Customer Discussions
|
This product's forum
Active discussions in related forums
Search Customer Discussions
|
Related forums
|
Listmania!
Look for similar items by category
Look for similar items by subject
Feedback
- Would you like to update product info or give feedback on images?
- I am the Author, and I want to comment on my book.
- I am the Publisher, and I want to comment on this book.
|
