North to Matsumae: Australian Whalers to Japan

They sailed to Japan, because that was where the whales were. They faced shipwreck, massacre and imprisonment, and rightly so, as the US, Britain, and Australia, in essence, were poaching whales off the coast in the early nineteenth century. Independent scholar Jones details the voyages of two Australian ships, the Lady Rowena and the Eamont. Basing her work on previously unpublished journals kept by the shipmaster of the Lady Rowena and on Japanese historical accounts, Jones describes how friction led to a conflict that, along with many others like it, help explain current Japanese whaling policy. Along with the striking narrative Jones supplies such details as the crew lists for both vessels, maps, and dozens of period illustrations and photographs. The result is a surprisingly complex narrative that explains how the powers swam with each other in pursuit of the whales. Distributed in the US by ISBS. Annotation c2008 Book News, Inc., Portland, OR (booknews.com)