In pursuit of Leviathan
Subtitle: technology, institutions, productivity, and profits in American whaling, 1816-1906
By: Lance E. Davis, Robert E. Gallman, and Karin Gleiter.
Contributors: Gallman, Robert E.; Gleiter, Karin.
Series: NBER series on long-term factors in economic development
Publisher: University of Chicago Press
Published: 1997
Place of publication: Chicago
Language: eng
Number of pages: 557
Subjects: Whaling -- United States -- History -- 19th century.; Whaling -- Economic aspects -- United States.
Description: In Pursuit of Leviathan examines the forces that led to the creation and enormous success of the American whaling industry and to its precipitous decline. The authors sue detailed and comprehensive data to describe more than four thousand individual whaling voyages from New Bedford, Massachusetts, the leading nineteenth-century whaling port. They analyze the institutions that were developed to deal with whaling's peculiar problems, and they consider the changing economic and natural environments in which whaling seamen, masters, agents, and owners were obliged to operate.
Notes: Includes bibliographical references and index.