War of the Whales: A True Story
Joshua Horowitz, 2014
Simon & Schuster
448 pp.
ISBN-13: 9781451645019
Summary
Two men face off against an all-powerful navy—and the fate of the ocean’s most majestic creatures hangs in the balance.
War of the Whales is the gripping tale of a crusading attorney who stumbles on one of the US Navy’s best-kept secrets: a submarine detection system that floods entire ocean basins with high-intensity sound—and drives whales onto beaches.
As Joel Reynolds launches a legal fight to expose and challenge the Navy program, marine biologist Ken Balcomb witnesses a mysterious mass stranding of whales near his research station in the Bahamas. Investigating this calamity, Balcomb is forced to choose between his conscience and an oath of secrecy he swore to the Navy in his youth.
When Balcomb and Reynolds team up to expose the truth behind an epidemic of mass strandings, the stage is set for an epic battle that pits admirals against activists, rogue submarines against weaponized dolphins, and national security against the need to safeguard the ocean environment.
Waged in secret military labs and the nation’s highest court, War of the Whales is a real-life thriller that combines the best of legal drama, natural history, and military intrigue. (From the publisher.)
Author Bio
Joshua Horwitz is the Founder and Publisher of Living Planet Books, which specializes in works by thought leaders in science, medicine and psychology.
In addition to War of the Whales (2014), Horwitz is the co-author of two books of non-fiction: Wrestling with Angels (with Naomi Rosenblatt, 1995), and If I Get to Five (with Fred Epstein, MD, 2003), which won the Christopher Award for Adult Nonfiction in 2004. He has also written a young adult novel and several children’s books.b
In 1990 Horwitz co-founded Living Planet Press, an environmental press that published books with leading environmental, conservation and humane organizations, including the National Resources Defence Council (NRDC), Wilderness Society, World Wildlife Fund, Conservation International, the Wilderness Society, American Forests, Animal Legal Defense Fund, and the American Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Animals (ASCPA).
In 1995, he launched Living Planet Books, a front-list non-fiction packaging firm specializing in books by thought leaders in science, medicine, and psychology such as the bestselling Raising Cain: the Emotional Lives of Boys (1998) and The Promise of Sleep (1998).
b
In 2000, Horwitz co-founded AuthorsOnline, a website featuring the homepages of award-winning and best-selling authors. In 2003, he founded Waterford Life Sciences, which publishes health and medical books for physicians and patients.
Whales
Horowitz knew virtually nothing about whales or submarines seven years ago, when the newspaper headline: "Navy v. Whales" first caught his attention. The article recounted an environmental attorney’s long-running lawsuit to limit navy sonar exercises that caused whales to mass strand. It wasn’t until he dug deeper into the background of the story that Josh discovered the 50-year relationship between the Navy and whales that stretched from the beginning of the Cold War to the present. The Navy v. Whales courtroom drama, which was heading for the Supreme Court, was the final divorce proceedings in long and complicated marriage.
After visiting environmental lawyer Joel Reynolds at a Baja, Mexico gray whale lagoon he’d help save from industrial development, Joshua then caught up with the book’s other protagonist, Ken Balcomb at a humpback whale sanctuary in Hawaii. He realized that this unlikely pair of activists, faced off against the world’s most powerful navy, had all the ingredients of a remarkable—and untold—tale of conscience and environmental justice, in the tradition of A Civil Action and Erin Brockovich. (From the publisher.)
Book Reviews
As War of the Whales…makes convincingly clear, the connection between naval sonar and deadly mass strandings of whales is scientifically undeniable…. By telling the sonar-and-the-whales story in such detail and breadth, the author may provoke a more substantial debate about what human advances and priorities are doing to the rest of the planet.
Marc Kaufman - Washington Post
Intimate and urgent storytelling…. Horwitz's years of research and observation lend genuine drama to this save-the-whales tale. The author paints rich portraits of his subjects, much fuller than the rote physical descriptions and caricatures that might pass for characterization in a breezier work of nonfiction.
Chicago Tribune
The story is so artfully constructed that you are drawn in and forget that you are not reading a novel…. [A] story that is fascinating even if you have no interest in whales or navy sonar…. [H]is masterfully crafted book is guaranteed to bring the issues to a larger audience.
Seattle Post Intelligencer
In a riveting and groundbreaking new book, War of the Whales, Joshua Horwitz, chronicles the true story of the 20-year battle led by scientists and environmental activists against military sonar. It reads like the best investigative journalism, with cinematic scenes of strandings and dramatic David-and-Goliath courtroom dramas as activists diligently hold the Navy accountable. A page-turning detective story, War of the Whales…chillingly tracks the US Navy’s culture of secrecy as it collides with environmental groups and grassroots’ demand for transparency.
Brenda Peterson - Huffington Post
In this gripping detective tale,science writer Horwitz recreates a day-by-day account of the quest to find thereasons for the mass strandings; the Navy’s resistance and cover-up of theiruse of sonar in the area; and the drawn out struggles between Balcomb, Joel Reynolds, of the Natural Resources Defense Council, and the Navy…. Riveting.
Publishers Weekly
Author Joshua Horwitz structures this account like an eco-legal thriller, layering his research so that film of a Navy ship seen in the water near the site of the beachings hangs there like damning evidence…. As humans encroach ever further into wild spaces, the impact on the creatures living there must be minimized or mitigated. War of the Whales tells one story among many of its type, but it speaks to the need for improved stewardship with urgency.
BookPage
(Starred review.) [A]n ongoing collision of epic proportions between the U.S. Navy, intent on protecting its submarine warfare program, and environmental activists, who fight to save whales from extinction…. Horwitz delivers a powerful, engrossing narrative that raises serious questions about the unchecked use of secrecy by the military to advance its institutional power.
Kirkus Reviews
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