By David Bradshaw

 He has been writing ever since the early 1980s  He was bourn 1956 in Boston Mass.  He went to Brown University to achieve his bachelors degree in English.  He later attended Duke University and achieved his Masters in American Literature.  He got married to Melissa DouthartPhilbrick and they have two grown children Jennie and Ethan.  He first worked as a freelancer and later moved to Nantucket in 1986 where he became interested in the islands history and wrote “Away off Shore”.  In 2000 he published In The Heart of the Sea followed by Sea of Glory, in 2003, and Mayflower. And he is now working on a book about the Battle of Little Big Horn.  For almost all of his books he has won an award or been a finalist for an award.

 Pretty much the protagonist through the whole book is the captain George Pollard. Because the captain ended up having to save all the other men from starvation, insanity, and just giving up through there whole journey. Even though he was not able to save all of them he did do all that he could to save as many as he could.

 In the book the whale is the main antagonist because it is the thing that makes them have to abandon there ship by smashing a huge hole in it.  But the crew is somewhat an antagonist because are the ones that led a lot of the men to certain death by taking the long way to land rather then taking a risk on some islands they thought were inhabited by cannibals.

 My favorite character is defiantly the captain (George Pollard), because it takes so much courage and ability to think about nothing but others to be able to lead men that are starving and almost going insane and giving up, when you are also experiencing the same things as them.

 My least favorite character is Charles Ramsdell, because he shot his best friend (Owen Coffin) for food, not just other food, but he shot him to use him as the food. This happened after casting lots to see who would be shot for food and who would be the executor.

 The rising action in this book is when they are on the western side of South America and they are not catching to many whales. So they decide to go to an unknown whaling ground a few thousand miles off the coast of Chile.

 The main characters are George Pollard, Owen Chase, and Mathew Joy. But all of the ships crew play a fairly big part in the story. The setting introduced is a harbor in Nantucket and aboard the ship the Essex and the main concept is stated many times and is about whaling.  The time in witch this takes place in the the 1820s

 The climax in this story happens after they have gone into uncharted waters that are said to have a lot more whales. Where they find many whales and set out to catch and kill them, but one of the 3 boats gets damaged in the process so they return to the ship to fix it. Then the weirdest thing happened when they saw a massive sperm whale with scars on its head begin to charge at the boat. The first blow just rattled the boat a bit, but the large whale went out and came back for a second try and punctured the ships side witch made the boat start to fill with water. The whale was never seen again.

 This is when all of the crew are in the three small 25 foot whale boats. They have left the wreck of the whale ship Essex and are headed toward the coast of South America, they were almost 5000 miles away. Then as they started to get closer the food started to deplete and they started to get weaker. They were only allowed a few ounces of hard tack and a half pint of water to keep them alive. All hope seemed lost but they stumbled across a small island where they were able to find a water source to fill there barrels and a small amount of animal life for food. They left 3 people on this island who wanted to stay and the rest headed for South America.

 This occurs after Pollard, Chase, and Joy’s boats were all separated in a storm. Luckily Pollard and Chase had some navigation equipment but joys only hope was to find one of the two boats, otherwise he would be stranded. So the two boats with navigational equipment headed east to the coast. After 93 days in the boats Pollards boat was found just a few hundred miles off the coast of Chile on February , and Chases boat was found off the coast of Masafurea island on February

 This book takes place in the early 1800s, this is important because it shows that there is hardy any technology and not much is known about the entire world even little is known about the known world and that there is a lot of unexplored land and water masses. All of that plays a large role in the book.

 This story takes place on a whale ship from Nantucket.  It also takes place a long ways north west off the coast of South America.  Then after all the bad things happen it takes place on three 25 foot whale boats where things could not get any worse.

1. The only way to save yourself and others is to be totally selfless. 2. Whaling can be a very dangerous, gruesome and brutal way to have a way of life that revolves around oil lamp light and things made from whale fat. 3. Sometimes the thing that seems worst at the time will end up being better in the end.

 Personally I would give the book an 8 out of 10 because it was in all a very well written book, but at times it was a little bit jumpy from one persons point of view to another's and had some boring useless parts throughout it.  I also thought it was very interesting and informative to how brutal they were to whales back then. I also liked how descriptive they were about how the times were in the whale boats and how starvation is as terrible as it is and all the things that came with low food and water intake.

The social issue I chose to study, that had a lot to do with this book and has a lot to do with people today, is important LEADERS and LEADERSHIP in post modern to modern times.

 I chose to do this social topic because without leaders, modern and old, we would not be where we are today.  Leaders have a very large effect on so many things in this world, wither it be someone on a boat 5000 miles away from land with a small amount of food and water and has to lead his men to survive, or wither it be someone who puts there life out there to have equal rights or to stop some kind of wrong doing to a group of people, or all people in general.

 He was a pastor of a Baptist church.  He was the leader of the 1955 Montgomery bus boycott. Which in the time it took to boil down and be resolved his house was bombed and he was arrested.  He was the founder of the “Southern Christian Leadership Conference, which was a group of people who were trying to harness the moral authority of getting black people all there freedoms and equal rights.  He was the man who gave an inspiring speech to thousands of people before the march on Washington.  He was probably the most influential leader to this date that caused the most to be done for a certain minority group.  He was assassinated April 4 th, 1968, which ended his amazing leadership rampage that took his people from being shunned to being almost accepted equal by law.

 He was a very accomplished leader, that was able to do what he told the people he would do.  But he had a very sick purpose behind what he was doing.  He is considered a great leader because he was able to bring Germany out of a post World War 1 depression. And even though what he was trying to accomplish he was able to convince millions of people that they were better then Jews and that they were the supreme beings of the world and was able to conquer most of Europe.  Even though what he was doing is by all means ethically wrong he was able to lead many people to what they thought was a brighter future.

 He was the first president of the great country we all live in known as the USA.  He is known as a great leader because he was the man that virtually kept the USA a country by fighting of the British in the American Revolution.  He was one who was able to be persuasive and get what he wanted and he was someone who wanted to make this country great and large.  He was also a man that only wanted to do things that were absolutely necessary for the countries survival and for the good of the people.  He was one of the original founders of the constitution and the bill of rights which is the law of the land and cherished today.

 He was the captain of the ship the Essex which was the boat in the book I read.  He went against all odds and lead most of his crew to safety.  He experienced the sight of death, near starvation, and cannibalism, but he was still able to captain and keep command of his crew while they were traveling to the coast of Chile even though they almost had no hope of anything.  His optimism and ability to lead and do all that is necessary to keep his men alive makes him a great leader, even though it did not affect many people it still was something no one would want to experience.

 He was the president of South Africa from 1994 to  He was the first president there to be elected by a democratic election.  He served 27 years in prison for sabotage and other crimes while he lead the movement against apartheid.  He lead the country to multi-racial democracy in South Africa.  He joined forces with the captain of there rugby team to unite the country through sport and supported and helped lead to team to the 1995 world cup. Which in a large since helped unite the people in the country.  The movie Invictus is based off what he did and was trying to do for the people of South Africa.

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 Good leaders back in the day were hard to come upon because they seemed to be told everything they had to do, they were very lacking in the ability to take a stand they didn’t want to be out of the ordinary.  Now leaders seem to have been given the weight to carry and understand that it is there job the get people to follow and do the right thing.  Though there are still great and bad leaders in both times It seems that the understanding for the duty seemed to of changed a bit.

1. They build excellence within what they are doing 2. A strong person or leader can be a good or bad leader depending on there type of character. For example Adolf Hitler was a strong leader but had a bad character and purpose about him. But George Washington was a strong leader with a good character he was trying to accomplish something that would help many people. 3. A good leader is trust worthy 4. A good leader is ethical and has a strong vision for the future. 5. Inspiring 6. Intelligent 7. Fair minded 8. Broad minded 9. Courageous 10. Strait forward 11. Imaginative 1. Warren Benis

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 THE UNKNOWN SOLDIER by Billy Rose  There's a graveyard near the White House Where the Unknown Soldier lies, And the flowers there are sprinkled With the tears from mother's eyes. I stood there not so long ago With roses for the brave, And suddenly I heard a voice Speak from out the grave:  "I am the Unknown Soldier, The spirit voice began "And I think I have the right To ask some questions man to man.  "Are my buddies taken care of? Was their victory so sweet? Is that big reward you offered Selling pencils on the street?  "Did they really win the freedom They battled to achieve? Do you still respect that Croix de Guerre Above that empty sleeve?  "Does a gold star in the window Now mean anything at all? I wonder how my old girl feels When she hears a bugle call. "And that baby who sang Hello, Central, give me no man Can they replace her daddy With a military band?  "I wonder if the profiteers Have satisfied their greed? I wonder if a soldier's mother Ever is in need?  "I wonder if the kings, who planned it all Are really satisfied? They played their game of checkers And eleven million died.  "I am the Unknown Soldier And maybe I died in vain, But if I were alive and my country called, I'd do it all over again.

 "Merriam Websters Collegiate Dictionary." Merriam Websters Collegiate Dictionary. Springfield Mass.: Merriam Webster Inc.,  Philbrick, Nathaniel. "Revenge of the Whale." Philbrick, Nathaniel. Revenge of the Whale. New York: G.P. Putnams sons,  Warren Bennis, Ph.D. NwLink. 28th February  Wikipedia. Famous People. March th February 2010.