Boston Flora

Tag: When America First Met China

  • Monday, April 18, 7:00 pm – Brilliant Beacons: A History of the American Lighthouse

    In a work rich in maritime lore and brimming with original historical detail, Eric Jay Dolin, the best-selling author of Leviathan, presents the most comprehensive history of American lighthouses ever written, telling the story of America through the prism of its beloved coastal sentinels. Set against the backdrop of an expanding nation, Brilliant Beacons traces the evolution of America’s lighthouse system, highlighting the political, military, and technological battles fought to illuminate the nation’s hardscrabble coastlines. In rollicking detail, Dolin treats readers to a memorable cast of characters including the penny-pinching Treasury official Stephen Pleasonton, who hamstrung the country’s efforts to adopt the revolutionary Fresnel Lens, and presents tales both humorous and harrowing of soldiers, saboteurs, ruthless egg collectors, and most importantly, the light-keepers themselves. Richly supplemented with over 100 photographs and illustrations throughout, Brilliant Beacons is the most original history of American lighthouses in many decades. Mr. Dolin will speak at Porter Square Books, 25 White Street in Cambridge, on Monday, April 18 at 7 pm, followed by a book signing.

    Eric Jay Dolin is the author of Leviathan: The History of Whaling In America, which was chosen as one of the best nonfiction books of 2007 by the Los Angeles Times and the Boston Globe, and also won the 2007 John Lyman Award for U. S. Maritime History; and Fur, Fortune, and Empire: The Epic History of the Fur Trade in America. He is also the author of When America First Met China: An Exotic History of Tea, Drugs, and Money in the Age of Sail. A graduate of Brown, Yale, and MIT, where he received his Ph.D. in environmental policy, he lives in Marblehead, Massachusetts, with his wife and two children.

  • Tuesday, January 29, 6:30 pm – 8:00 pm – When America First Met China: An Exotic History of Tea, Drugs, and Money in the Age of Sail

    The Arnold Arboretum will present When America First Met China: An Exotic History of Tea, Drugs, and Money in the Age of Sail on Tuesday, January 29 in the Hunnewell Building, 125 Arborway, beginning at 6:30 pm. Best-selling author Eric Jay Dolin will trace America’s fraught relationship with China back to its roots: the unforgiving nineteenth-century seas that separated a brash, rising naval power from a battered ancient empire. He will delve into the furious trade in furs, opium, and bêche-de-mer–a rare sea cucumber delicacy—which might have catalyzed America’s emerging economy, but also sparked an ecological and human rights catastrophe of such epic proportions that the reverberations can still be felt today. Hear about this period in history that preceded and spurred American botanical expeditions to China in the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries. Fee $5 Arboretum member, $15 nonmember. Other books by Eric Jay Dolan include Fur, Fortune, and Empire, Leviathan, and Political Waters: The Long, Dirty, Contentious, Incredibly Expensive but Eventually Triumphant History of Boston Harbor.  Register on line at www.my.arboretum.harvard.edu.