Confession: I've never read *Moby-Dick*. Nathaniel Philbrick makes me want to. In just 144 approachable pages, he offers a glimpse into the history of Melville's classic and the life behind it: his inspirations, his muse, his family problems, and the guilt and doubts he wrestled with while writing. I love this kind of behind-the-scenes drama. For example, the first draft didn't even include Captain Ahab.

Finished reading: [The Rush: California Gold, the Civil War, and the Making of the Modern World](https://micro.blog/books/9780525562238) by Nathaniel Philbrick

“We’re always on the edge of catastrophe,” Nathaniel Philbrick says of America, from 1850s San Francisco to 2020s Silicon Valley.

A commodity economist explains why the art market's plumbing, its financial apparatus and its blind spots all look familiar—and why it enables fraudsters like Inigo Philbrick

The best-selling author Nathaniel Philbrick sees links between eighteen-fifties California and the current A.I. boom. What can the history of the action-packed gold rush actually tell us?

“We’re always on the edge of catastrophe,” Nathaniel Philbrick says of America, from 1850s San Francisco to 2020s Silicon Valley.

In “The Rush,” Nathaniel Philbrick paints a portrait of the treasure seekers, prospectors and conniving politicians who shaped the destiny of the United States.

_NEW YORK TIMES_ BESTSELLER ·A _New York Times_ Most Anticipated Nonfiction Book of 2026· A _Los Angeles Times_ Best Book of the Fall National Book Award winner and Pulitzer Prize finalist Nathaniel Philbrick, author of _In the Heart of the Sea_ and _Mayflower_, reveals how California’s Gold Rush forged the modern United States—and lit the long fuse to civil war In January 1848, a carpenter spotted flecks of gold in a shallow stream at Sutter’s Mill in California, triggering the greatest voluntary migration in U.

Eight pages into "The Rush: California Gold, the Civil War, and the Making of the Modern World" (Viking), Nathaniel Philbrick tells us why he wrote this. Seventy-year-old Philbrick lives in Nantucket, the source of his career for the past four decades. After publishing two books about its history — "Off the Shore: Nantucket Island and its People, 1602-1890" and "The Eyes of Abram: The Native American Heritage of Nantucket Island" — he turned his attention to one of the numerous whaling ships that sailed from the island in the nineteenth century.

Eight pages into "The Rush: California Gold, the Civil War, and the Making of the Modern World" (Viking), Nathaniel Philbrick tells us why he wrote this. Seventy-year-old Philbrick lives in Nantucket, the source of his career for the past four decades. After publishing two books about its history — "Off the Shore: Nantucket Island and its People, 1602-1890" and "The Eyes of Abram: The Native American Heritage of Nantucket Island" — he turned his attention to one of the numerous whaling ships that sailed from the island in the nineteenth century.

Eight pages into "The Rush: California Gold, the Civil War, and the Making of the Modern World" (Viking), Nathaniel Philbrick tells us why he wrote this. Seventy-year-old Philbrick lives in Nantucket, the source of his career for the past four decades. After publishing two books about its history — "Off the Shore: Nantucket Island and its People, 1602-1890" and "The Eyes of Abram: The Native American Heritage of Nantucket Island" — he turned his attention to one of the numerous whaling ships that sailed from the island in the nineteenth century.

Eight pages into "The Rush: California Gold, the Civil War, and the Making of the Modern World" (Viking), Nathaniel Philbrick tells us why he wrote this. Seventy-year-old Philbrick lives in Nantucket, the source of his career for the past four decades. After publishing two books about its history — "Off the Shore: Nantucket Island and its People, 1602-1890" and "The Eyes of Abram: The Native American Heritage of Nantucket Island" — he turned his attention to one of the numerous whaling ships that sailed from the island in the nineteenth century.

Eight pages into "The Rush: California Gold, the Civil War, and the Making of the Modern World" (Viking), Nathaniel Philbrick tells us why he wrote this. Seventy-year-old Philbrick lives in Nantucket, the source of his career for the past four decades. After publishing two books about its history — "Off the Shore: Nantucket Island and its People, 1602-1890" and "The Eyes of Abram: The Native American Heritage of Nantucket Island" — he turned his attention to one of the numerous whaling ships that sailed from the island in the nineteenth century.

Bunker Hill: A Siege, A City, A Revolution by Nathaniel Philbrick is the perfect book to top off the nation’s 250th birthday year. Having spent most of my life in Massachusetts, having driven or wa…