**“An exciting and at times almost unbelievably dramatic story” — Michael O’Donnell, Wall Street JournalNew York Times • “The Nonfiction Everyone Will Be Talking About in 2026”Goodreads • Readers’ Most Anticipated Books of Summer…and the Rest of the Year!Kirkus • 40 Hottest Reads for Summer of 2026An astonishing true story—one of the most gripping maritime sagas of the nineteenth century—told by our era’s “expert literary steersman” (Wash...

The true story of five castaways abandoned on the Falkland Islands during the War of 1812—a tale of treachery, shipwreck, isolation, and the desperate struggle for survival.In Left for Dead, Eric Jay Dolin—“one of today’s finest writers about ships and the sea” (American Heritage)—tells the true story of a wild and fateful encounter between an American sealing vessel, a shipwrecked British brig, and a British warship in the Falkland archipelago du...

**A Los Angeles Times Best Non-Fiction Book of 2007A Boston Globe Best Non-Fiction Book of 2007Amazon.com Editors pick as one of the 10 best history books of 2007Winner of the 2007 John Lyman Award for U. S. Maritime History, given by the North American Society for Oceanic History"The best history of American whaling to come along in a generation." —Nathaniel Philbrick**The epic history of the "iron men in wooden boats" who built an in...

With surprising tales of vicious mutineers, imperial riches, and high-seas intrigue, Black Flags, Blue Waters is “rumbustious enough for the adventure-hungry” (Peter Lewis, San Francisco Chronicle).Set against the backdrop of the Age of Exploration, Black Flags, Blue Waters reveals the surprising history of American piracy’s “Golden Age” - spanning the late 1600s through the early 1700s - when lawless pirates plied the coastal waters of N...

A Seattle Times selection for one of Best Non-Fiction Books of 2010Winner of the New England Historial Association's 2010 James P. Hanlan AwardWinner of the Outdoor Writers Association of America 2011 Excellence in Craft Award, Book Division, First Place"A compelling and well-annotated tale of greed, slaughter and geopolitics." —Los Angeles TimesAs Henry Hudson sailed up the broad river that would one day bear his name, he grew concerned that...

Washington Post • 50 Notable Works of Nonfiction in 2020Finalist • Kirkus Prize for NonfictionKirkus Reviews • Best Nonfiction Books of 2020Library Journal • Best Science & Technology Books of 2020Booklist • 10 Top Sci-Tech Books of 2020New York Times Book Review • Editor's ChoiceWith A Furious Sky, best-selling author Eric Jay Dolin tells the history of America itself ...

Ancient China collides with newfangled America in this epic tale of opium smugglers, sea pirates, and dueling clipper ships.Brilliantly illuminating one of the least-understood areas of American history, best-selling author Eric Jay Dolin now traces our fraught relationship with China back to its roots: the unforgiving nineteenth-century seas that separated a brash, rising naval power from a battered ancient empire. It is a prescient fable for our time, one that su...

**Winner of the Samuel Eliot Morison Award for Naval LiteratureWinner of the Fraunces Tavern Museum Book AwardA Massachusetts Center for the Book "Must-Read"Finalist for the New England Society Book AwardFinalist for the Boston Authors Club Julia Ward Howe Book AwardSamuel Eliot Morison Book Award for Naval LiteratureNational Society Daughters of the American Revolution (NSDAR) Excellence in American History Book AwardThe bestselling author...

"What Moby-Dick is to whales, Brilliant Beacons is to lighthouses—a transformative account of a familiar yet mystical subject." —Laurence Bergreen, author of Columbus: The Four VoyagesIn this "magnificent compendium" (New Republic), best-selling author Eric Jay Dolin presents the definitive history of American lighthouses, and in so doing "illuminate[s] the history of America itself" (Entertainment Weekly). Treating read...

Set against the backdrop of the Age of Exploration, Black Flags, Blue Waters reveals the dramatic and surprising history of American piracy's "Golden Age"—spanning the late 1600s through the early 1700s—when lawless pirates plied the coastal waters of North America and beyond. Bestselling author Eric Jay Dolin illustrates how American colonists at first supported these outrageous pirates in an early display of solidarity against the Crown, and then violently opposed them. Through ...

The heroic story of the founding of the US Navy during the Revolution has been told many times, yet largely missing from maritime histories of America's first war is the ragtag fleet of private vessels that truly revealed the new nation's character—above all, its ambition and entrepreneurial ethos.In Rebels at Sea, Eric Jay Dolin corrects that significant omission, and contends that privateers, as they were called, were in fact critical to the American victory. Privateers ...

New York Times • “The Nonfiction Everyone Will Be Talking About in 2026”An astonishing true story—one of the most gripping maritime sagas of the nineteenth century—told by our era’s “expert literary steersman” (Washington Post).From the best-selling author of Black Flags, Blue Waters comes the story of the American whaleship Mentor, wrecked in 1832 on a r...