Eric Jay Dolin
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An astonishing true story―one of the most gripping maritime sagas of the nineteenth century―told by our era’s “expert literary steersman” (Washington Post).
From the best–selling author of Black Flags, Blue Waters comes the story of the American whaleship Mentor, wrecked in 1832 on a remote reef in the western Pacific. With supplies dwindling, the eleven surviving crewmen face not only the miseries of shipwreck in unfamiliar territory but also the profound uncertainty of contact with the Indigenous people of the Micronesian archipelago of Palau, who within days approach the deserted men brandishing axes, clubs, and spears. In this gripping saga of cultural collision, tribal wars, and dashed hopes, award–winning historian Eric Jay Dolin vividly reconstructs the Mentor’s doomed voyage, the years of perilous captivity, and the delicate negotiations and fraught naval rescue mission that followed.
Illustrated by more than 100 images and maps, The Wreck of the Mentor is at once a powerful story of survival and a revealing window into the great Age of Sail―a time when maritime ambition collided with local sovereignty, and when the outcome of one voyage rippled across oceans and empires.
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Order
Coming June 2, 2026
Praise and awards for a few of Eric Jay Dolin's past books
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LEFT FOR DEAD
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"It’s a tale with all the elements of a movie blockbuster: shipwreck, mutiny, greed and a desperate struggle for survival in a hostile environment. There is also high-minded altruism, persistent backstabbing, drunkenness and—as if a movie executive had insisted it could only help the box office—a noble dog. . . . Dolin’s firm grasp of the 19th-century maritime world is undeniable. . . . This is a masterly account of a historical event."—Bill Heavey, The Wall Street Journal
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"It would hardly be an exaggeration to say that Dolin’s saga has as many twists and turns as a route through the mazy South Atlantic archipelago. . . . Dolin does justice to the drama of it all in a mere 259 pages of text without stinting on one of pleasures of reading 19th-century history: the wordsmithery of people high and low. He tells us that hungry castaways on one island called their makeshift abode 'Pinch-Gut Camp' and quotes an officer’s verdict on pilferage by members of his own crew: 'You might as well expect to squeeze honey out of a ship’s anvil, as to make an old marine or sailor honest.' The author of several previous books on such maritime topics as piracy and whaling, Dolin is an expert literary steersman."—Dennis Drabelle, The Washington Post
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"Bestseller Dolin (Rebels at Sea) unspools a fraught encounter on the Falkland Islands during the War of 1812 . . . This stunning account of shifting fortunes is riven with tension on every page, as Dolin provides detailed descriptions of bickering and backstabbing, tricky nautical maneuvers, and desperate survival techniques. It’s an edge-of-your-seat adventure."—Publishers Weekly, Starred Review
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REBELS AT SEA
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Winner of the 2023 Fraunces Tavern Museum Book Award;
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Winner of the Samuel Eliot Morison Book Award For Naval Literature, given out by the Naval Order of the United States
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Winner 2025 National Society Daughters of the American Revolution (NSDAR) Excellence in American History Book Award for Adult Nonfiction
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Selected by the Massachusetts Center for the Book as a Must-Read Book for 2023.
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Finalist for the 2022 Boston Author's Club Julia Ward Howe prize for nonfiction.
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Finalist for the New England Society Book Award for Historical Nonfiction/Biography for 2023.
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“Yet another maritime masterpiece by one of the top historians of the oceans! Rebels at Sea is a brilliant exposition of a little-understood and under-appreciated part of the American Revolution underway. Like his earlier works, it is full of fresh thinking and sharply observed anecdotes that both inform and delight. Eric Jay Dolin's books deserve a prominent place on every sailor's bookshelf.”—Admiral James Stavridis, 16th Supreme Allied Commander at NATO and author of The Sailor's Bookshelf: Fifty Books to Know the Sea
“Eric Jay Dolin, the author of several books on early American seafaring, believes that these privateers have received short shrift in other histories of the Revolution. His thoroughly researched, engagingly written Rebels at Sea gives them their due . . . when a ship couldn’t outsail its foes, or when a potential prize resisted, a bloody action could ensue, and Rebels at Sea vividly recounts some of these battles, as vessels with evocative names such as Vengeance, Eagle and Defiance face off against the enemy . . . Dolin convincingly contends that the underappreciated ‘militia of the sea’ played a critical role in the colonies winning their independence, despite Britain’s ‘peculiar and sovereign authority upon the ocean."—Gerard Helferich, Wall Street Journal
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A FURIOUS SKY
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Selected as a "Must Read" book by the Massachusetts Center for the Book for 2020.
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Finalist for the 2020 Kirkus Prize for Nonfiction (Of the 395 titles eligible in the nonfiction category, only six were selected as finalists by the judges).
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Winner of Atmospheric Science Librarians International Choice Award for History.
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Editor's Choice, The New York Times Book Review (August 16, 2020)
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Washington Post -- 50 Notable Works of Nonfiction for 2020
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Library Journal -- One of the Best Science & Technology Books of 2020
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Kirkus Reviews -- One of the top 100 nonfiction books of 2020
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Booklist -- 10 Top Sci-Tech Books of 2020
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Amazon.com -- One of the Best Science Books of 2020
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". . . [L]ively chronicle of five tempestuous centuries . . . Where A Furious Sky is most compelling is in its often harrowing details. It’s filled with haunting personal stories."—Elizabeth Kolbert, The New York Times
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"[Dolin] blends lovely writing with clear explanations of technical concepts like 'storm surge' and 'vertical wind shear' that a reader needs in order to understand hurricanes. . . . With active language and sharp characters, he puts us in scene . . . Dolin takes us through hurricane after hurricane. You’d think that a recounting of wrath, wreckage, and recovery would be repetitive, but A Furious Sky is far from it. Thanks to Dolin’s reporting and framing, each hurricane is a different story that delivers its own lesson about human nature."—Lyn Millner, The Los Angeles Review of Books
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BLACK FLAGS, BLUE WATERS
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Chosen as a "Must-Read" book for 2019 by the Massachusetts Center for the Book.
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Finalist for the 2019 Julia Ward Howe Award given by the Boston Author's Club
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Selected by Goodreads as one of September’s top five History/Biography titles recommended in their monthly New Releases e-mail.
"Dolin adroitly addresses these themes [the romantic appeal versus the hard truth of the pirate life] in Black Flags, Blue Waters, an entertaining romp across the oceans that shows how piracy is an inseparable element of our past. Here, as in his earlier books, Leviathan (2007), about whaling, and Brilliant Beacons (2016), about lighthouse keepers, Mr. Dolin explores a dreamy occupation and then shifts our focus to the gritty, perilous realities of leading such a life. . . . Dolin has a keen eye for detail and the telling episode. Readers will learn fascinating tidbits of language, habits and cultural assimilation."—Rinker Buck, author of The Oregon Trail, in review in the Wall Street Journal
"Black Flags, Blue Waters is a fast-paced scholarly narrative about seamen who turned rogue to terrorize the seventeenth- and eighteenth-century Atlantic. . . . Dolin has produced an elegantly written history. His streaming writing style makes for enjoyable reading, and his penchant for distinguishing where fact has been garnished and morphed into legend creates sundry unexpected revelations. These romantic or repulsive sea rovers continue to captivate the imaginations of the public. Over the years, many books about pirates have been published, but Black Flags, Blue Waters is distinctive and an excellent addition to this subdivision of maritime history."—Louis Arthur Norton, Sea History Magazine
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LEVIATHAN
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Selected as one of the best nonfiction books of 2007 by The Los Angeles Times, The Boston Globe, and The Providence Journal.
Chosen by Amazon.com's editors as one of the 10 best history books of 2007.
Awarded the 23rd annual (2007) L. Byrne Waterman Award, by the New Bedford Whaling Museum, for outstanding contributions to whaling research and history, for the publication of Leviathan.
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​“Editor’s Choice” selection by the New York Times Book Review
Named an Honors Book in nonfiction for the 8th annual Massachusetts Book Awards (2008-2009).
Won the 2007 John Lyman Award for U. S. Maritime History, given by the North American Society for Oceanic History.
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"Engrossing account . . . at once grand and quirky, entertaining and informative." Publisher's Weekly -- Starred Review
"The best history of American whaling to come along in a generation" Nathaniel Philbrick -- Author of In The Heart of the Sea & Mayflower
"I thought I learned everything I needed to know about whaling from Melville, but I was wrong. Eric Jay Dolin's Leviathan exposes the rise and fall of the industry inspired by the great beasts of the deep . . . The excitement of the stories in this magnificently researched saga build and build — until crude oil replaces whale oil, and the copper-sheathed planking from the hulls of old ships gets sold for novelty firewood. I read every word." Dava Sobel -- Author of Longitude & Galileo's Daughter
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