Customer Reviews

Henry Hudson: Dreams and Obsession: The Tragic Legacy of the New World's Least Understood Explorer

5 star:		(3)
4 star:		(1)
3 star:		(0)
2 star:		(1)
1 star:		(0)

 

 

If you're considering buying this book you should know what you're in for. If you're expecting a biography of Henry Hudson you'll be disappointed. There is very little on Hudson in this book. What you get is a high-level overview of what Hudson is thought to have done and a whole lot of ramble on Corey Sandler's experiences visiting the places Hudson visited.

There's not a whole lot that's known about Hudson. What there is comes from a few brief surviving documents. You get the text from those documents word-for-word with little if any interpretation from the author. That's the real disappointment of this book. If I wanted to read the text of the original documents I'd look them up myself online. What I wanted was expert interpretation and the telling of the story that these documents seem to describe.

Sandler writes from Nantucket, an island he shares with the great historian Nathaniel Philbrick. But where Philbrick excels at taking scant information and turning it into a fascinating story, Sandler dumps the source information on the page and then rambles on about his own experiences in visiting the same places 400 years later. Unfortunately, it's just not very interesting. Thought you'd learn about Hudson's trip up the river that bears his name? You're going to get a little of that and then a whole lot of information on General Electric, PCBs, the environmental movement, and Pete Seeger.

An earlier reviewer characterized this book as being 1/3 history. I'd put it more at 1/10th. By the end of the book you'll know little about Hudson, but all about Sandler's political views, summer camp experiences, family, feelings, travel preferences, and a whole lot of other personal detail. If that's what you're looking to read about, you'll love it. But if you read the title and thought you were instead going to read a biography of Henry Hudson, you'll be disappointed.

This is a marvelous book about one of the least-known of the great explorers.

As Corey Sandler says, very little is known about Henry Hudson except for the period included within the five years of his four voyages. And much of what is on the record is based on the testimony of the mutineers who were out to save their own necks.

Instead, what the author has done is write a fascinating biography of the PLACES Hudson explored: Svalbard near the north pole, Novaya Zemlya above Russia, the Hudson River, and northern Canada including Hudson Strait, Hudson Bay, and James Bay.

He uses the logs and journals of Hudson and some of his crew to put things in context, and then tells us the stories of some of the most amazing places on the planet.

This is a most unusual book, a great read. And it delivers exactly what it promises: "The Tragic Legacy of the New World's Least Understood Explorer." Every page brought a new perspective on history for me. I highly recommend this book.

I am going to give this 5 stars. I'll list why in a second just let me tell you a few of my issues. First Sandler doesn't seem to interview that many people concerning the Clearwater Sloop, the Hudson River Keeper or the many, many other environmental organizations dedicated to keep the Hudson clean. He also brushes over the Storm King case. Sandler does not mention the Indian Point nuclear power plant.

Ok now that's out of the way let me explain a bit why this book is excellent.

First of all its one-third history, one-third travelogue and one-third PSA for keeping all the places Henry Hudson visited clean. The history part is fairly typical in that we don't know much about Hudson; he may have been a bad captain nothing that new or exciting. But overall it's still interesting and a good introduction for those unfamiliar with Hudson.

Then comes the travelogue sections. These are really interesting mostly because of all the unique people the author met on his travels. In reading the book the former director of Clearwater, Andy Mele, comes off as a pretty genuine guy. He's not a crazy tree hugging hippe but just a regular guy that wants to do some good. Most of the environmentalist people come off this way. Some people may not like this but honestly try spending a night near the Hudson...smell that? Yeah, that's the river. I did enjoy Sandle's search for Hudson's monuments and as he mentions in the introduction the most obvious ones are the Hudson River and New York City.

The best parts are the sections that are basically the PSAs about environmentalism. There are numerous digs at GE for dumping PCBs and our society in general. Having lived for four years about 100 yards from the Hudson I must say it's easily one of the greatest sights in the world. But its also one of the biggest dumps too. I think it's terrible that the river is so polluted that you can't go for a swim or eat a fish from there. I had a picnic with my girlfriend one day in Hyde Park right on the river and it was pretty easy to spot all the trash washed up on the shore. Ok enough gushing as Sandler does a much better job explaining this then I do.

In conclusion just read the book. It's excellent.

A very fscinating discription of those parts of the world, Henry Hudson saw at his voyages and a lot of very interesting information how things developed until today in these regions. Henry Hudson himself gives more the frame than the content of the book.

This is a very enjoyable, very interesting exploration of the story of Henry Hudson.

There is very little known about Hudson, and most of his logs and journals were destroyed or lost. But what Corey Sandler has done is remarkable: he has taken what we do know about Hudson and woven it into an modern-day exploration of the places the great explorer visited.

Sandler visits Svalbard, the icy archipelago near the North Pole and tells its story before and after Hudson's visit on his first voyage. Then he tells the story of Novaya Zemlya, the Russian island where Hudson was trapped on his second expedition and tells how it became the Soviet Union's nuclear scrapyard.

Hudson's third voyage--the one that traveled up the Hudson River--is told within the context of the story of that great river: its early days, its near-ruination by pollution, its environmental champions, and its current riverkeepers.

And then Sandler tells the murder mystery story of Hudson's fourth voyage, to the frozen north of the Canadian Arctic. We learn about the Inuit and Cree, and the theories of how Hudson came to be abandoned by his crew in James Bay.

If you're looking for a traditional history of Henry Hudson, you won't find one. Not here, or anywhere else. His story is mostly lost.

But what Sandler has done is remarkable: it's a great read that places Hudson's voyage within the context of his time and ours.