---------------------------------------------------------
“In the bright new age
of whale science, Graham Burnett's astounding and wide-ranging report from the
front lines of cetacean studies is hugely welcome. Rooted in historical fact,
political, philosophical, and scientific analysis, it lays out the sorry story
of the interaction of humans and whales in an era that redefined the ever-uneasy
meeting of natural and human history. By turns enlightening, lively, and
disturbing, always intuitive and drawing on a wealth of knowledge as vast as
its subject, Burnett’s book is set to become a new high water mark in a still
unfolding story.”
Philip Hoare, author of The
Whale
“The wait is over. We finally have a comprehensive,
brilliantly written chronicle of science in the history of whaling—or whaling
in the history of science. Graham Burnett’s leviathanic opus covers everything you ever wanted
to know—or didn’t know you wanted
to know—about the biology, conservation, politics, and history of what is
perhaps man’s most troubled
relationship with wild animals. This masterly study eclipses every cetological
work that precedes it. Well, maybe not Moby-Dick.”
Richard
Ellis, author of The Great Sperm Whale
The Sounding of the Whale
Science
and Cetaceans in the Twentieth Century
D. Graham
Burnett
“In the early twentieth century, whale biology was
restricted to the flensing decks of factory ships, where scientists were in
danger of being sucked ‘into the belly of the beast’ of modern whaling.
D. Graham Burnett artfully renders the history, and
the often fractious relationship, between biologists and whalers; I felt as if
I had discovered a trail of ambergris meticulously arrayed along the shores
of
twentieth-century cetology. The Sounding
of the Whale is a work of stunning scholarship
and a bracing read.”
Joe Roman, author of Listed and Whale
D. Graham
Burnett is professor of
history and history of science at Princeton University. He is an editor at Cabinet
magazine and the author of four books, including A Trial by Jury, Trying
Leviathan, and Masters of All They Surveyed. He is available for
interviews
Please contact Levi Stahl
at (773) 702-0289 or lstahl@press.uchicago.edu
for more information.