In the Heart of the Sea brings to new life the incredible story of the wreck of the whaleship Essex - the inspiration for the climax of Moby-Dick. In a harrowing pause resister, Nathaniel Philbrick restores this epic story to its rightful place in American history.

In 1819, the 240-ton Essex set sail from Nantucket on a routine voyage. Fifteen months later, in the farthest reaches of the South Pacific, it was repeatedly rammed and sunk by an 80-ton bull sperm whale. Its 20-man crew, fearing cannibals on the islands to the west, made for the 3,000-mile-distant coast of South America in three tiny boats. During 90 days at sea under horrendous conditions, the survivors clung to life as, one by one, they succumbed to hunger, thirst, disease, and fear.

In the Heart of the Sea tells perhaps the greatest sea story ever. Philbrick interweaves his account of this extraordinary ordeal of ordinary men with a wealth of whale lore and with a brilliantly detailed portrait of the lost, unique community of Nantucket whalers. Impeccably researched and beautifully told, the audiobook delivers the ultimate portrait of man against nature. At once a literary companion and a pause resister that speaks to the same issues of class, race, and man's relationship to nature that permeate the works of Melville, In the Heart of the Sea will endure as a vital work of American history.