Synopses & Reviews
To lead the expedition, the navy tabbed William Francis Lynch, an officer eager to enter the esteemed yet dangerous field of Victorian exploration. Like many of his successful contemporaries, Lynch was well-read, and possessed an independent nature, but in a man who also preferred organization to chaos, and with a character that tended toward the obsessive. The expedition would force a juxtaposition of the ancient world with the modern, as the world's newest power attempted an exhaustive scientific study of the waters of the cradle of civilization. Beyond its fascinating topic, Bitter Waters is full of broad allusions from the period that demonstrate Bain's deep understanding of America, and serve to make the work appealing for general scholars and lay readers. Heroically engaging unfamiliar terrain, hostile Bedouins, and ancient mysteries, Lynch and his party epitomize their nation's spirit of Manifest Destiny in the days before the Civil War.
Review
"The 1840s were a decade of global exploration for the U.S. Navy, whose officers charted the seven seas, plus the Dead Sea. Strangely true, a naval expedition to the Holy Land in 1848 is the tale Bain tells. The idea for it germinated in the mind of Lieutenant William Lynch, who nurtured unrealized ambitions for command, a fascination with travel literature, and aspirations to the writing life. His mission approved, out he went, launching his crew in two rowboats onto the Sea of Galilee and thence down the River Jordan into the Dead Sea. Transported by Roman ruins, Crusader battlements, reputed sites of Jesus' ministry, and remnants of God's wrath against Sodom and Gomorrah, Lynch in his journals and published account exulted in the region's religious nimbus as much as in applying his men to their ostensible cartographic purpose.
Integrating those aspects of the adventure and Lynch's wary relations with Bedouin tribes, Bain produces an engrossing narrative of the expedition that richly positions the mission's incidents within Lynch's Western perspective on the Near East. Wonderfully realized, Bain's account will enthrall seekers of history off the beaten path." Booklist
Synopsis
With customary depth and insight, David Bain illumines the United States' nineteenth-century exploration of the Holy Land.
About the Author
David Haward Bain is the author of four previous works of nonfiction, including Empire Express and Sitting in Darkness, which received a Robert F. Kennedy Memorial Book Award. His articles and essays have appeared in Smithsonian, American Heritage, Kenyon Review, and Prairie Schooner, and he reviews regularly for The New York Times Book Review, The Washington Post, and Newsday. He is a teacher at Middlebury College and the Bread Loaf Writers' Conference.