 | Price Comparisons: Rental | | Sorry, the textbook you were looking for is not available as Rental, at any of the stores we searched. | Summaries and Customer Reviews are supplied by Amazon.com The English explorer Henry Hudson devoted his life to the search for a water route through America, becoming the first European to navigate the Hudson River in the process. In Fatal Journey, acclaimed historian and biographer Peter C. Mancall narrates Hudson’s final expedition. In the winter of 1610, after navigating dangerous fields of icebergs near the northern tip of Labrador, Hudson’s small ship became trapped in winter ice. Provisions grew scarce and tensions mounted amongst the crew. Within months, the men mutinied, forcing Hudson, his teenage son, and seven other men into a skiff, which they left floating in the Hudson Bay. A story of exploration, desperation, and icebound tragedy, Fatal Journey vividly chronicles the undoing of the great explorer, not by an angry ocean, but at the hands of his own men. |
Average Customer Rating:    A poor excuse This book was very difficult to stay interested in from the beginning. The author states several times in the first chapter there was very little accurate record keeping or actual first hand accounts of the story that he is telling as non-fiction. The author tries to cobble together a likely story of what would be possible at the time, based on general accounts of people unrelated to the story. The only truly concrete information is from sketchy ship logs and the trial that resulted on the return of the mutinous crew.
Overall it was a tough and uninspiring read. Fatal Journey This wasn't at all what I expected. It read more like a history book regarding the economic battle between nations to finding the NE or NW passage to spices and riches.
The actual account of Hudson's voyages and especially his fatal voyage was minor in comparison to events that wrapped around the trips.
An ok read - just not for me. Mutiny is always a fascinating read Henry Hudson must have made an appearance in my school textbooks, because I had a vague recollection of his fate. I couldn't have told you anything more than that he was set adrift during a mutiny on a sea voyage to locate the elusive Northwest Passage.
This book filled me in adequately on the time of exploration surrounding Hudson's doomed voyage and on Hudson's expedition in particular. I imagine not much is known about the actual voyage of the ship Discovery beyond what Mr. Mancall has written. Other reviewers feel that the book is padded with extraneous information about other expeditions, but I felt it was a good way for the author to fill in the blanks of this sketchy journey with what might have happened, given the challenges other explorers faced on similar expeditions.
The author might have spiced up his tale by heightening the emotional tone of his writing as the mutinous events unfold. The startling revelation that Hudson hid food for himself while his men starved was shocking to me, but the author presents it in much the same tone as he uses to describe the effects of cold on the human body. The narrative drive is somewhat bumpy, too. It doesn't build to the climactic event in the way that, say, a Jon Krakauer book does. But then this story doesn't end with the dramatic cutting loose of Hudson's skiff. The trial back home in England of the remaining crew members follows, and it's not gripping courtroom stuff, at least not as it's presented here.
But this ill-fated sea voyage is worth knowing about in its entirety, whether or not Mr. Mancall's entire book is a thrilling read. It's far better than any textbook I ever got saddled with, that's for sure! Disappointing. Lacking good narrative and light on facts I picked up the book from my library after seeing a mention of it on Glenn Reynolds blog and was fairly disappointed in it.
The structure of the book follows Hudson on four journeys: Two due north, one to the Hudson River area of the Atlantic coast, and then his journey to Hudson Bay ending in James Bay. After the mutiny, the book concludes with the trials of the mutineers.
The author doesn't seem to have enough source material to write an entire book on Hudson's journeys. Hudson's early life is fairly anonymous, the circumstances surrounding his death are completely unknown. Against these book-ends, there's only sketchy narrative pieced together from ship logs and from journals very few of which are his own. If this were a book about mutiny on 17th century English ships or northwest passage exploration, Hudson's tale would make an interesting chapter or three.
Next, get yourself a good map of the Hudson Bay, Hudson River and the Arctic Circle before even cracking the book open.
My copy of the book didn't have any kind of useful map other reviewers have mentioned (I wonder if this was an insert in later printings). Without it, the book is confusing and requires constant trips to an atlas to find out what the author is talking about. The maps included in the text are worthless for following the narrative: illegibly small, blurry, and of course dated. Islands and channels are named, but modern names for these places often aren't given alongside. The players in this story were confused about distance and heading, and the author's descriptive style doesn't clear that up for the modern reader either.
Speaking of narrative: Mancall is not a storyteller. He bounces around through the story unevenly, giving away later events that aren't so well known under a guise of foreshadowing. There was undoubtedly a great deal of tension on the ship before Hudson was marooned, but it fails to come through the pages. Twice he drags us through the examination of the mutineers, repeating the same facts but without any drama. He makes it clear that the treatment of mutineers changes between the first and second examinations, but doesn't give much a sense of why that makes the second one necessary or important.
One more nit. The author's previous book was about Richard Hakluyt. Throughout this book, the name is dropped over and over again but without a clear connection of what it has to do with this story. I can understand wanting to re-use your research, or pitching your other book, but please tie it all together. To give you a sense of this sillyness, I recall one passage similar to "Hakluyt may have have written about this".
This book needed a cruel editor.
There probably are better books about Hudson, and there are most certainly better books about English exploration of the Northwest Passage and the New World in the early 17th century. Seek them out.
Tragedy of Henry Hudson Basically, the book is a credible account of the efforts to find a Northwest Passage in the early to mid-seventeenth century. Mancall does a good job in establishing the economic importance of finding an Arctic route to the Spice Islands. Mancall's research of journals and accounts appears to be exhaustive, but unfortunately the book is a rather dry read. The author may be excused for lack of drama in some respects since the Hudson's journals and those from his associates apparently were rather cursory--unlike Pigafetta's. Even so, the story could be much more compelling had the author visited Hudson Bay or had first hand knowledge of working a sailing vessel in Arctic waters. Much more vivid are the works of Samuel Eliot Morison and Dallas Murphy because they sailed the routes of the voyages they write about.
The two page map of Hudson's voyages (1607-1611) is very welcome and an essential part to understanding the narrative--particularly the inset map of Hudson Bay. The reproductions of early maps, paintings/drawings from other expeditions scattered throughout the book are generally too small and dark to be useful. The large map itself has mislabeled the Provinces of Quebec, Ontario and Manitoba. Also, Davis Strait should have been noted as well as the degrees latitude.
Tom Ogle, South Carolina
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