From the best–selling author of Black Flags, Blue Waters comes the astonishing true story of the New Bedford whaleship Mentor, wrecked in 1832 on a remote reef in the western Pacific. There, eleven surviving crewmen faced the miseries of shipwreck and, ultimately, captivity with the Indigenous people of the Micronesian archipelago of Palau. In The Wreck of the Mentor, the award–winning historian Eric Jay Dolin shares their powerful story of survival and dramatic naval rescue. Through his illustrated presentation and conversation with maritime historian William Fowler, Dolin will bring to life the great Age of Sail, a time when maritime ambition collided with local sovereignty, and when the outcome of one voyage rippled across oceans and empires. Don’t miss learning more about one of the most gripping maritime sagas of the nineteenth century.
Zoom Access
Click here to join the live broadcast: https://zoom.us/j/93706784642
The live broadcast will take place June 23, 2026, 6:00-7:15p.m. Eastern Time. The program will be recorded, and registrants will receive a link to the video recording, which will be posted to this page.
Additional Information
Attendees who purchase the $42 bundled ticket will be mailed a signed (book plated) copy of The Wreck of the Mentor (hardcover, $27.99 value). Books will be shipped two week after the live event. They will be sent Priority Mail throughout the U.S., except in Massachusetts (Media Mail).
Eric Jay Dolin is the best-selling author of numerous works in maritime history, including Left for Dead; Black Flags, Blue Waters; and Leviathan. His books have won many awards including the John Lyman Award for U.S. Maritime History; Fraunces Tavern Museum Book Award; National Society Daughters of the American Revolution Excellence in American History Book Award; and the Samuel Eliot Morison Book Award for Naval Literature; and he was a finalist for the Kirkus Prize. He now lives in Marblehead, Massachusetts, with his family.
William M. Fowler, Jr. is Distinguished Professor of History Emeritus at Northeastern University in Boston, and also the former Director of the Massachusetts Historical Society, President of the New England Historic Genealogical Society, and President of the Colonial Society of Massachusetts. He is co-author of America and the Sea: A Maritime History as well as several other books, including: Rebels Under Sail: The Navy in the Revolution; Jack Tars and Commodores: The American Navy, 1783-1815; Samuel Adams: Radical Puritan; Under Two Flags: The American Navy in the Civil War; and American Crisis: George Washington and the Dangerous Two Years after Yorktown, 1781-1783. His most recent book is Steam Titans: Cunard, Collins, and the Epic Battle for Commerce on the North Atlantic.