Mad For Glory

by Robert Booth

Robert Booth tells the story of the ill-fated Essex with accuracy, immediacy, and a broad vision of its meanings as an epic of war, a gripping tale of the sea, a brilliant portrait of a disturbed and disturbing American hero, and a geo-political thriller that sheds new light on the origins of U.S. imperialism, the tragedy of missed opportunities, and the disastrous and permanent impact of Porter's rampage on the peoples of the Pacific.

336 pages, Hardcover

Published November 5, 2015

Reviews

[Lisa Montgomery · Rating 4 out of 5]

I am a bit of a history buff, but I had never heard this tale. Captain David Porter runs off with the U.Sl frigate to live the life of a privateer in 1812.
Truth is stranger than fiction, as they say.
288 pages

[Glen Brooksby · Rating 3 out of 5]

Interesting book. I'm glad I read it, but toward the end I found myself reading it to be done with it. Perhaps my expectations were wrong, but it is really two stories in one. One about Porter, the crazed ship captain, and one about Poinset. They are told in parallel and I kept waiting for them to intersect dramatically. While they do intersect, it just didn't do it for me.