19 of 20 people found the following review helpful:
2.0 out of 5 stars
Disappointing. Lacking good narrative and light on facts, September 4, 2009
This review is from: Fatal Journey: The Final Expedition of Henry Hudson (Hardcover)
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.
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8 of 8 people found the following review helpful:
3.0 out of 5 stars
Tragedy of Henry Hudson, August 17, 2009
This review is from: Fatal Journey: The Final Expedition of Henry Hudson (Hardcover)
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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18 of 22 people found the following review helpful:
4.0 out of 5 stars
A man lost to history, July 7, 2009
This review is from: Fatal Journey: The Final Expedition of Henry Hudson (Hardcover)
Henry Hudson is a man mostly forgotten by the history books. People know his Bay and his River, but how many know the man himself disappeared during one of his voyages to find the Northwest Passage. The search for the Passage has sparked many mysteries, the foremost being John Franklin. Almost two hundred years before Franklin, Hudson sought the Passage.
This account of what happened to Hudson is an interesting look into the world of sailing in the early 1600s. At times the book moves slowly, in fact, I skipped a chapter which didn't seem to make much of a difference to the story. It's hard to write an entire book, I imagine, about a man who is most famous for his death and disappearence and about which almost nothing else is known.
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