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Harpoon: Into the Heart of Whaling
How can it be that, 20 years after whaling was 'banned', whales continue to be harpooned? How does Japan get away with bribing small nations to vote to reintroduce commercial whaling? Come on a global journey to follow the whalers, the campaigners, and the whales themselves.
To many, the whale is a majestic mammal, the 'mind in the ocean'. What were once whaling towns have become homes to hordes of devoted whale watchers, and whaling, for the most part, was thought to have been vanquished. It was just a matter of waiting for those few misguided nations still whaling to come to their senses.
That never happened. Instead, the whalers came back. In 1987, the first full year after the worldwide moratorium on commercial whaling was agreed to, 100 whales were killed on the end of grenade-tipped harpoons. In 2005, the figure was around 2,500.
Harpoon reveals the political machinations and manipulation at the highest levels that have allowed some countries, particularly Japan, to continue hunting whales against the wishes of the world, with the IWC powerless to stop the slaughter.
To many, the whale is a majestic mammal, the 'mind in the ocean'. What were once whaling towns have become homes to hordes of devoted whale watchers, and whaling, for the most part, was thought to have been vanquished. It was just a matter of waiting for those few misguided nations still whaling to come to their senses.
That never happened. Instead, the whalers came back. In 1987, the first full year after the worldwide moratorium on commercial whaling was agreed to, 100 whales were killed on the end of grenade-tipped harpoons. In 2005, the figure was around 2,500.
Harpoon reveals the political machinations and manipulation at the highest levels that have allowed some countries, particularly Japan, to continue hunting whales against the wishes of the world, with the IWC powerless to stop the slaughter.
296 pages
First published December 31, 2006
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Displaying 1 - 11 of 11 reviews
June 26, 2016
An environmental journalist decides to write a short history of whaling. A decent book, but it suffers from a lot of fundamental issues that make me yearn for a better book to learn about whaling.
The biggest issue is that "Harpoon" is really two very short books awkwardly stitched together, a journalistic nature literature about whales and a highly-detailed, nitty-gritty, chronological history of the International Waling Commission with a focus on the Japanese. The stuff that concerns the IWC is the better part of the book, maybe because that story has a beginning, middle, and end with twists and fascinating characters while the whale descriptions just clog up the narrative like a beached whale. In the early part of the book, the author makes the weird choice to structure his chapters by different species of whale, starting with the Right whale. This doesn't fit at all with the political narrative, since some IWC actions apply to all whales and for example it's not clear why the pages about the 1982 moratorium are in the Sperm chapter. So usually each chapter will start with the author in some exotic locale either with a scientist or a whale hunter and then he'll awkwardly segue back to IWC internal politics.
The author also has a somewhat odd problem in that he never properly explains a lot of things. The book is seemingly aimed at lay landlubbers but there's a hefty amount of nautical and scientific terms that are used without explanation. Like the word "flensing" which is never properly defined but seems to be the act of cutting up a dead whale. Having a globe would also have been helpful while reading this, because the geography of Antarctica is apparently important and the author just assumes the reader knows which hemisphere the Ross Ice shelf is or what latitude Fiji is at.
In summary, an okay history book with some good bits to it, but the book would have benefited from having a clearer focus. Then again, a chronological history of the IWC aimed at non-academics probably wouldn't sell very well, despite being a good story.
The biggest issue is that "Harpoon" is really two very short books awkwardly stitched together, a journalistic nature literature about whales and a highly-detailed, nitty-gritty, chronological history of the International Waling Commission with a focus on the Japanese. The stuff that concerns the IWC is the better part of the book, maybe because that story has a beginning, middle, and end with twists and fascinating characters while the whale descriptions just clog up the narrative like a beached whale. In the early part of the book, the author makes the weird choice to structure his chapters by different species of whale, starting with the Right whale. This doesn't fit at all with the political narrative, since some IWC actions apply to all whales and for example it's not clear why the pages about the 1982 moratorium are in the Sperm chapter. So usually each chapter will start with the author in some exotic locale either with a scientist or a whale hunter and then he'll awkwardly segue back to IWC internal politics.
The author also has a somewhat odd problem in that he never properly explains a lot of things. The book is seemingly aimed at lay landlubbers but there's a hefty amount of nautical and scientific terms that are used without explanation. Like the word "flensing" which is never properly defined but seems to be the act of cutting up a dead whale. Having a globe would also have been helpful while reading this, because the geography of Antarctica is apparently important and the author just assumes the reader knows which hemisphere the Ross Ice shelf is or what latitude Fiji is at.
In summary, an okay history book with some good bits to it, but the book would have benefited from having a clearer focus. Then again, a chronological history of the IWC aimed at non-academics probably wouldn't sell very well, despite being a good story.
April 22, 2014
This book started off pretty slow but picked up about a quarter of the way through. It highlights 5 species that are/were heavily exploited by whalers. It goes only a little bit into their natural histories. Interwoven in those species chapters is the history of whaling back when they were exploited for oil and baleen. It does not go into indigenous whaling. It then moves forward into pre/post WW2 whaling and how and why the Japanese and Soviets started commercial whaling. Then it moves into modern "scientific" whaling by the Japanese. It was very enlightening to see why the Japanese continue to whale and all of the excuses they make. Large scale whaling did not begin for the Japanese until WW2 when they had to or starve, thus the rationalization it is a cultural thing is false. Now it is "scientific" when modern tech can reach the same results. It was interesting to see how the IWC actually worked and how we got into this conundrum that we are currently in. It was incredibly interesting to see the transformation of countries like Australia, Britain and the US who whaled up until fairly recently suddenly switched from pro to anti whaling. Overall, a really good book. It wasn't heavy on the tree hugging. It kept to the facts very well without getting too emotional, even though there was a definite anti whaling slant, though I am more than ok with that. I don't think I could have read it if it wasn't.
December 2, 2008
This was an incredibly well-researched book. It suffered a bit from a lack of organizational principle. It drifted between following different species, following chronology, and following particular players. Overall, the author's vehement opposition to whaling actually undermined the argument. His refusal to couch his points objectively put me into a Devil's advocate mode where I often ended up making counterarguments for the whalers just to avoid having Darby's views rammed down my throat. In particular, he makes very little effort to understand the Japanese point of view on whaling. I don't know why the Norse whalers received gentler treatment.
January 29, 2009
The bad pun in the subtitle biased me against this book as soon as I picked it up, and I'm not sure I like it very much more now that I've read it. Darby's reverence and awe for the whales is evident, and it is when he is describing them- with an efficient blend of history, trivia and literary references- that I found myself really enjoying this book. In the second half, everything just winds down. I was put off by his lack of enthusiasm for the anti-whaling cause, though. He trots out the relevant statistics, but it feels like he does it by rote. I felt shortchanged by the end.
June 12, 2014
Excellent book - read it and be sorrowed, but also read it and see the seeds of hope. Makes me appreciate once more how amazing it has been for me to see whales in person from shore or boat, and how special some of my memories of whales are, just how rare it is.
(But it seemed the proofreader stopped reading before getting to the epilogue, which was unusually filled with typos and missed punctuation over a span of just four pages. Odd.)
(But it seemed the proofreader stopped reading before getting to the epilogue, which was unusually filled with typos and missed punctuation over a span of just four pages. Odd.)
December 9, 2008
I found the writers style to be quite boring, and found it easy to lose interest. I did learn a lot about different types of whales. I knew about the evils of Japanese "scientific" whaling, but didn't know about the atrocities committed by the Soviets. The author seemed to be very anti Japanese while not giving the same coverage to the Norwegians. Overall a pretty depressing read.
August 30, 2009
Much more focused on recent whaling history (since mid-20th century) than I would have thought. I suppose I was expecting more of a long-term historical overview. This was written more from a journalistic perspective than a historical one. Nothing wrong with that, but not exactly my cup of tea.
It's about as depressing as one might think.
It's about as depressing as one might think.
June 17, 2011
Really well researched, interesting read. I didn't realise the extent to which the Soviets had been conning the world. I can't believe that the debate on this outdated industry rumbles on in to the 21st century. Go Sea Shepherd - keep up the good work and put it to bed once and for all.
June 29, 2013
When I first dove into this book I wasn't sure I was going to like it. But it didn't take long for me to become enveloped by what information lies between the pages. In the end I learned quite a good lesson about the history of whaling broken down by each species.
December 23, 2009
Un lavoro davvero esauriente per capire cosa sta dietro allo sterminio delle balene e al saccheggio degli oceani. Non e' leggero da leggere, ma se vi interessa l'argomento lo consiglio vivamente.
October 15, 2015
excellent, sad, somewhat historic, thought provoking
Displaying 1 - 11 of 11 reviews