In Leviathan, Eric Jay Dolin recounts the dramatic tales of American whaling, telling stories of whalemen and these great creatures with grandeur and pathos. This magisterial history encompasses the three-hundred-year saga of American whaling, c apturing the absorbing social and economic history of the nation through the triumphs and travails of this great American industry.

Introduction -- Part One: Arrival and ascent, 1614-1774 -- John Smith goes whaling -- "The king of waters, the sea-shouldering whale" -- All along the coast -- Nantucket, the "faraway land" -- The whale's whale -- Into "ye deep" -- Candle wars -- Glory days -- Part Two: Tragedy and triumph, 1775-1860 -- On the eve of Revolution -- Ruin -- Up from the ashes -- Knockdown -- The golden age -- "An enormous filthy humbug" -- Stories, songs, sex, and scrimshaw -- Mutinies, murders, mayhem, and malevolent whales -- Part Three: Disaster and decay, 1861-1924 -- Stones in the harbor and fire on the water -- From the earth -- Ice crush -- Fading away -- Epilogue: Fin out.