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| |  | Health & Personal Care | Home » » Sea of Glory: America's Voyage of Discovery, the U.S. Exploring Expedition, 1838-1842 | | | | | | | Description: | | America’s first frontier was not the West; it was the sea—and no one writes more eloquently about that watery wilderness than Nathaniel Philbrick. In his bestselling In the Heart of the Sea Philbrick probed the nightmarish dangers of the vast Pacific. Now, in an epic sea adventure, he writes about one of the most ambitious voyages of discovery the Western world has ever seen—the U.S. Exploring Expedition of 1838– 1842. On a scale that dwarfed the journey of Lewis and Clark, six magnificent sailing vessels and a crew of hundreds set out to map the entire Pacific Ocean—and ended up naming the newly discovered continent of Antarctica, collecting what would become the basis of the Smithsonian Institution, and much more. | | | Product Details: | | | Author:
| Nathaniel Philbrick | | Hardcover:
| 416 pages | | Publication Date:
| October 31, 2003 | | Package Length:
| 8.8 inches | | Package Width:
| 6.4 inches | | Package Height:
| 1.6 inches | | Package Weight:
| 1.65 pounds | | Average Customer Rating:
|  based on 68 reviews |
| | | | Customer Reviews: | |
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 Big science, big egoFeb 27, 2010
One way to look at the U.S. Ex Ex, as it was called, is that it was America's first venture into "big science," a field we like to think we have excelled in. If so, our first steps belied later results, because the United States Exploring Expedition as conceived in kookery, organized as a scam and carried out in shambles.
And succeeded, more or less, anyway. "Science in America was forever changed by the Ex Ex," writes Nathaniel Philbrick. Not that there was such a great deal of it up to that point anyway, so even if it had been conducted entirely differently, with different outcomes, it still would have changed everything.
In terms of impact, the Ex Ex had much less of it than the modest voyage of the Beagle a few years earlier. The British had been running scientific expeditions for a long time and had the practice down. The French, Russians, Germans, Danes, even the Austrians had done it. It was characteristic of the Americans that they did not try to learn much from these.
Also characteristic that the necessity of bringing the illiterates in Congress in for permission and money was a buffoonish operation. The expedition had its origin far from the sea, in the ravings of an Ohio nut who thought the Earth was hollow. But he had the ear of a congressman.
Philbrick gives a good account of the way things got done in a small country with a tiny coterie of people who had the money, the educational background and the political connections to maneuver their way toward such a thing as a Pacific expedition. The eventual selection of a very junior officer, Charles Wilkes, to lead the expedition could never have been foretold at the start.
European adventures were often assigned to incompetents because of aristocratic considerations. America had no aristocrats but ended up with, at best, a semi competent through the bizarre operations of democracy.
"Sea of Glory" is more about Wilkes and his psychological makeup than it is about the expedition itself. The leader of the Ex Ex ideally ought to have been an experienced seaman, a skilled scientist and a wise manager of men. James Cook was all three. Charles Wilkes was none of them.
Nevertheless, Cook ended in the stewpot and Wilkes made it home alive. Such are the chances of exploring in the premodern world.
 Great Story TellingFeb 27, 2010
A bit slow to start, but once they get to sea: Fascinating! Philbreck is a talented writer who makes history fun and entertaining. Highly recommended.
Better than fictionDec 01, 2009
This was one of the most interesting historical books I've read in a long time. It's the story of a forgotten and under-appreciated adventure that I'm glad I came across by accident. Philbrick is an excellent writer and paced the story evenly with intelligent selection as to what to provide as background, and what to leave out. The story was well researched, which couldn't have been as easy as it would seem by the way the story unfolded. I lumbered along through the first third of the story, but the last two-thirds I read in two days. It was riveting as a fictional pirate story.
The only complaint that I have is that the nautical terms were a little beyond me at times, but if they were included, it might provoke a complaint that the explanations of the terms weighed the story down. I certainly didn't feel I lost anything by not being familiar with terminology.
Another strong point of the story is the objective view of the author, although it didn't seem that way through the whole book, but in the end, it was. The author allowed the characters, their actions, and their words speak for themselves.
By the end of this book, I felt, as the author seems to have, that this was one of the most amazing and important explorations in United States history and laid the foundation for many important scientific realizations all over the world. I'm surprised that this story isn't as well known as the Lewis and Clark exploration, because it sure should be.
Great AudiobookSep 12, 2009
Nathaniel Philbrick is one of my favorite authors. I have read almost everything he has written. Having read this book about 2 years ago, I wondered how it would be to hear it while I hiked Yosemites High Sierra Campls. Rather than carry a book, use a flashlight and glasses to read, I put the book onto my ipod and drifted off to sleep at 10,000 feet to one of the greatest adventure stories written about our American history. The experience was beyond words as I was listening to a great story while I was living an adventure of my own. The narrator had an appropriate voice and was able to convey the words to images as you listen.
James Smith
0 of 4 found the following review helpful:
 The Expedition is interesting - the writing is terribleAug 09, 2009
I agree with several other 2 star reviews - the author gets mired in trying to log all of Wilkes faults in relentless detail - and misses the interesting part of the story - the scientific and exploration details. The book needs to be re-written under a good editor. There are really two stories here that need to be told separately - and this author twists them together and makes a mishmash of both stories.
One story is the scientific expedition and exploration, the other story is the soap-opera about childish, spoiled children who obstructed the driven leader of the expedition.
The author's judgmental orientation leaves a distasteful impression, especially as the expedition was a military function and whether it's 1840 or 2009, military discipline rules. Wilkes instituted 5 different courts marshall charges against 5 groups and was himself court marshalled, but he prevailed and went on to become an Admiral in the USN.
I found this book very frustratingly similar to another book I recently tried to enjoy - the author there focussed on judging the captain and not the voyage in In the Wake of Madness: The Murderous Voyage of the Whaleship Sharon
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