Description
Product Description
“A fascinating, fast-paced history…full of remarkable characters and incredible stories” about the nineteenth-century American dynasties who battled for dominance of the tea and opium trades (Nathaniel Philbrick, National Book Award-winning author of In the Heart of the Sea).
There was a time, back when the United States was young and the robber barons were just starting to come into their own, when fortunes were made and lost importing luxury goods from China. It was a secretive, glamorous, often brutal business—one where teas and silks and porcelain were purchased with profits from the opium trade. But the journey by sea to New York from Canton could take six agonizing months, and so the most pressing technological challenge of the day became ensuring one’s goods arrived first to market, so they might fetch the highest price.
“With the verse of a natural dramatist” (
The Christian Science Monitor), Steven Ujifusa tells the story of a handful of cutthroat competitors who raced to build the fastest, finest, most profitable clipper ships to carry their precious cargo to American shores. They were visionary, eccentric shipbuilders, debonair captains, and socially ambitious merchants with names like Forbes and Delano—men whose business interests took them from the cloistered confines of China’s expatriate communities to the sin city decadence of Gold Rush-era San Francisco, and from the teeming hubbub of East Boston’s shipyards and to the lavish sitting rooms of New York’s Hudson Valley estates.
Elegantly written and meticulously researched,
Barons of the Sea is a riveting tale of innovation and ingenuity that “takes the reader on a rare and intoxicating journey back in time” (Candice Millard, bestselling author of
Hero of the Empire), drawing back the curtain on the making of some of the nation’s greatest fortunes, and the rise and fall of an all-American industry as sordid as it was genteel.
Review
“Full of remarkable characters and incredible stories, Steven Ujifusa’s
Barons of the Sea is a fascinating, fast-paced history of America’s clipper ship era. Highly recommended.”
— Nathaniel Philbrick, National Book Award-winning author of In the Heart of the Sea
“Fast-paced and entrancing... recounting freak storms, improbable romances, and mutinies on the high seas.... Ujifusa tells these stories with the verve of a natural dramatist.... Masterfully done.”
— The Christian Science Monitor
“
Barons of the Sea is a riveting, raucous book. If you love the sea, it’s all here: dreams, money, ambition, and competition.”
— Jay Winik, bestselling author of April 1865
“
Barons of the Sea moves as fast as a clipper ship at full sail. With a seemingly effortless command of the shared history of China and the United States in the nineteenth century, Ujifusa takes the reader on a rare and intoxicating journey back in time.”
— Candice Millard, bestselling author of Hero of the Empire
“Ujifusa has produced a carefully researched, lovingly written tribute to a now-vanished breed of ships and people, an entertaining chronicle of a few heady years when vision, speed, and daring helped the United States begin to establish its leading role on the world stage.”
— Foreign Policy
“Among the pleasures of
Barons of the Sea is the author’s extensive knowledge of ship design and nautical history; the book is almost a beginner’s manual in sailing and is infused by a clear love for the regal triple-masters of the past.... The ships themselves, rather than the owners and captains, become the main characters.”
— The Wall Street Journal
“As learned as it is entertaining. Ujifusa has brought the golden age of American maritime commerce to vivid life. Extraordinary people and the wondrous clipper ships they built fill its pages with both great stories and deep insight into what makes humans of any age tick.”
— John Steele Gordon, author of An Empire of Wealth
“Barons of the Sea is a true adventure story. It’s got ev