Barons of the Sea: And their Race to Build the World's Fastest Clipper Ship

Written by Steven Ujifusa

Narrated by Arthur Morey

“A fascinating, fast-paced history…full of remarkable characters and incredible stories” about the nineteenth-century American dynasties who battled for dominance of the tea and opium trades (Nathaniel Philbrick, National Book Award–winning author of In the Heart of the Sea).

There was a time, back when the United States was young and the robber barons were just starting to come into their own, when fortunes were made and lost importing luxury goods from China. It was a secretive, glamorous, often brutal business—one where teas and silks and porcelain were purchased with profits from the opium trade. But the journey by sea to New York from Canton could take six agonizing months, and so the most pressing technological challenge of the day became ensuring one’s goods arrived first to market, so they might fetch the highest price.

“With the verse of a natural dramatist” (The Christian Science Monitor), Steven Ujifusa tells the story of a handful of cutthroat competitors who raced to build the fastest, finest, most profitable clipper ships to carry their precious cargo to American shores. They were visionary, eccentric shipbuilders, debonair captains, and socially ambitious merchants with names like Forbes and Delano—men whose business interests took them from the cloistered confines of China’s expatriate communities to the sin city decadence of Gold Rush-era San Francisco, and from the teeming hubbub of East Boston’s shipyards and to the lavish sitting rooms of New York’s Hudson Valley estates.

Elegantly written and meticulously researched, Barons of the Sea is a riveting tale of innovation and ingenuity that “takes the reader on a rare and intoxicating journey back in time” (Candice Millard, bestselling author of Hero of the Empire), drawing back the curtain on the making of some of the nation’s greatest fortunes, and the rise and fall of an all-American industry as sordid as it was genteel.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Simon & Schuster Audio
• Release date: Jul 17, 2018
• ISBN: 9781508257349

Steven Ujifusa

Steven Ujifusa received his AB in history from Harvard University and a master’s degree in historic preservation from the University of Pennsylvania. His first book, A Man and His Ship, tells the story of William Francis Gibbs, the naval architect who created the ocean liner SS United States; The Wall Street Journal named it one of the best nonfiction titles of 2012. His new book, Barons of the Sea, brings to life the dynasties that built and owned the magnificent clipper ships of America’s nineteenth-century-era of maritime glory. Steven has given presentations across the country and on the high seas, and has appeared as guest on CBS Sunday Morning and NPR. A recipient of a MacDowell Colony fellowship and the Athenaeum of Philadelphia’s Literary Award, he lives with his wife, a pediatric emergency room physician, in Philadelphia. Read more about him at StevenUjifusa.com. 

Reviews for Barons of the Sea

[shrike58 · Rating: 4 out of 5 stars]

The author weaves quite a clever web as he looks at the business environment that provided a rationale for the ten-year long heyday of the China & California clippers before considering the technology of these ships, the crews that took them to sea and how circumstances rendered them obsolete. It is also striking that many of the descendants of the merchant princes who commissioned these vessels were so willing to talk to Ujifusa considering that the opium trade was such a big aspect of this business. I also found it interesting that Donald McKay, the greatest builder of clipper ships, was ultimately broken by poorly negotiated ship-building contracts with the U.S. government during the Civil War more than anything else (aborting a transition to the building of railroad locomotives).