Part of the problem is that only a brief portion of "Mutiny on the Globe" is devoted to the voyage and the mutiny itself. Author Thomas Heffernan spends a long time detailing the early life of Smauel Comstock, which is not all that interesting and pales by comparison to "Batavia's Graveyard"'s gruesome accounts of life at sea during the so-called golden age of sail. The book is also strangely lacking in details about Nantucket whaling, which were so memorable in "In the Heart of the Sea" (the events of which took place around the same time). The last third of the narrative is devoted to the stories of the survivors of the mutiny, though the accounts of the two sailors who were forced to live in captivity among Marshall Island natives for two years before being rescued are also not worth the amount of narrative space they are given.

Heffernan is a decent storyteller and tries his best to liven up his tale. The main problem seems to be that the material he had to work with seems more suited to a long magazine article than a full length book.


There are better versions   November 9, 2002
 8 out of 8 found this review helpful

After making an honest attempt at reading Heffernan's account of the mutiny on the Globe I decided the story was much too interesting to be spoiled by his telling of events.
Gregory Gibson's excellent book Demon of the Waters tells the same story in a far more exciting and informative manner, a real page-turner at the level of Junger and Philbrick.


A Tale to Inspire Melville   July 29, 2002
 4 out of 6 found this review helpful

There is madness all through the classic Moby Dick, not just Ahab, and not just on the doomed whaleship _Pequod_, but on many of the vessels the _Pequod_ meets. Melville was well acquainted with the madness that might be found at sea, and he knew the literature touching thereupon. One of the quotations that are included in the mammoth collection that starts off the great novel is from the _Life of Samuel Comstock (The Terrible Whaleman)_: "If you make the least damn bit of noise," replied Samuel, "I will send you to hell." The accounts of Comstock's mutiny on the whaleship _Globe_ were well known at the time; the stories were wild and made for popular reading. Now Thomas Farel Heffernan has scrupulously studied the accounts to produce _Mutiny on the Globe: The Fatal Voyage of Samuel Comstock_ (Norton). His account of the grisly mutiny and its aftereffects is a fast-moving and suspenseful account of the 1824 disaster which should satisfy sea history buffs, Melville fans, and anyone interested in a good yarn.

Samuel Comstock was born into a decent and prosperous Quaker family in 1802, but that didn't seem to have much to do with even his boyish activities. He was headstrong and disobedient, and at twelve, he was packing pistols and daggers under his pillow at night. He tried to run away to sea at age fourteen, and his father gave up, allowing Samuel to begin his seagoing career. As can be imagined, he had the usual drunkenness and brawling that are the hobbies of sailors, but he had sexual and romantic conquests, too; he seems to have been the archetypal bad boy that some ladies cannot help falling for. He learned plenty about going to sea, and he learned that he particularly did not like whaleships, but during his first whaling cruise, he formed the plan to spend the rest of his life as the white king of the natives of a Pacific island, which he would make a pirate center, capturing any vessel that came near. When he signed up on the _Globe_, Samuel put into his sea chest some unseamanlike possessions. He included pistols, daggers, a medicine chest, surgical instruments, and agricultural seeds. It is clear he was going to put his plan into action. He ingratiated himself to the captain, who thought he was an especially competent mariner. Samuel was able to convince a handful of other sailors (not including his little brother George who sailed with him) that his plan was feasible. The gory mutiny occurred, and the ship was guided to an atoll in the Marshall Islands. Samuel was never able to put his plan into affect, because his fellow mutineers realized they would have to be put out of the way to make it happen. Much of this book is spent telling what happened after his plan was thwarted, especially to the remaining two sailors left for two years with the natives until being rescued by the US Navy. The resolute and meritorious action of the rescuers and the rescued nicely contrasts to the bloody mutiny itself.

Heffernan knows his whaling history. He has been president of the Melville Society, and has written about the _Essex_, whose seemingly deliberate sinking by a whale inspired the climax of Moby Dick. Melville and his work are cited but a few times in the current volume, but Melville has to loom over any recounting of the whale fishery. Comstock possesses not a little amount of Ahab, and the themes of a mad dream and of death in his story Melville obviously turned full blast into his own work. There is some hope, though, in the current volume - not all is lost, and many of the sailors who lived managed heroically to save themselves and their fellows. It is a grim, gripping, and ultimately inspiring tale.


Rather dissappointing   September 26, 2003
 4 out of 4 found this review helpful

The author's speculations were at times annoying.
But what I disliked the most about this book was
it incomplete summary of the folks involved.
The author wrote a good deal about the two
stranded survivors. Yet in the closing of the
book, the fate of one is ommitted. This was
aggravating.


Murder most foul but also popular history at its best   May 26, 2002
 3 out of 4 found this review helpful

Many aspects of this senseless mutiny on board a Nantucket whaleship in the south Pacific in 1824 are fairly well known. There were many contemporaneous accounts of the MUTINY ON THE GLOBE. Two that are used by Heffernan are those of an officer on board the US navy ship Dolphin than went in rescue of the Globe's crew, and the account written by George Comstock, an eyewitness to "The Fatal Voyage of Samuel Comstock" and younger brother to the murderous leader of the mutineers. George's narrative comprises one of the books appendices.

Since Heffernan is a historian, the facts are important and are given their due, but because he's an excellent writer the real enjoyment for readers is in his telling of the tale. The real interest is where it always is in these tragedies at sea - the people, the places, and the purpose of it all? Is there a point to mutiny or are we left to conclude that there was simply something bloody-minded about sailors in centuries past? There is no doubting that 21-year-old "terrible whaleman" Samuel Comstock was a violent man. Heffernan tells us that "at the age of twelve he carried pistols and daggers", played war games and frequently had violent fantasies. After his first trips at sea his Quaker siblings noted that "there was nothing left in his eyes". But surely this is insufficient evidence for Heffernan to claim that he was a "malignant narcissist" and a "sociopath". As we read on however we see the truth of it. Half way through the book the night of mutiny and murder occurs. Twenty-nine year old Captain Worth, First-mate Beetle and other officers were dispatched. Heffernan is unflinching in his description of Worth's demise saying "they ran the boarding knife through his body and drove it home with a blow from an axe; it entered below the stomach and came out the neck." I repeat what Heffernan wrote for one reason only. This more than anything else will convey to the reader both the degree of Comstock's depravity and the intense, emotive power of Heffernans writing.

Comstock got his comeuppance and not too long after either. His bizarre dream of an island kingdom with him as ruler never came to fruition and died with him on the sands of Mili Atoll in the Marshall Islands. With the central character gone what's left for Heffernan? The remainder of the book is merely a shift in emphasis but loses nothing in interest. The story is now that of the six crew members (inclusive of 15-year-old George Comstock) who managed to sail the Globe some 7,000 miles to Valparaiso, Chile, and also the nine men (quickly reduced to two) who stayed behind on the island. The US navy sent out the schooner Dolphin under the command of Lt. "Mad Jack" Percival to rescue the remaining crew. The ship arrived some 18 months later and was greeted by the loin-cloth clad two youngest members of Globe's crew who were living a life of semi-slavery and part-adoption to the islanders. This book is rich with the human drama of the rescued (William Lay and Cyrus Hussey) and the rescuers, set against the backdrop of island life, the role of the US Navy in the Pacific, the whaling industry, and the social and economic life of Quaker Nantucket.

If it were not a true story and Heffernan were not a historian you wouldn't be blamed if after reading this you came away thinking "what a rollicking good nautical yarn!" It's not but because it feels like that is perhaps the best recommendation for this fine work of popular history.