Nathaniel Philbrick, Author

Join bestselling author Nathaniel Philbrick as he discusses his latest book, In the Hurricane’s Eye: The Genius of George Washington and the Victory at Yorktown, which tells the story of the remarkable year leading up to the siege of Yorktown. It sets Washington against his traitorous nemesis, Benedict Arnold, and places him in impossible situations and constant acrimonious negotiations with his French allies. A riveting and wide-ranging narrative full of dramatic turns, In the Hurricane’s Eye reveals that the fate of the American Revolution depended, in the end, on Washington and the sea.

Nathaniel Philbrick was born in Boston, Massachusetts, and grew up in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania. He earned a BA from Brown University and an MA from Duke University. After working as an editor at Sailing World magazine, he wrote and edited several books about sailing. In 1986, Philbrick moved to Nantucket with his wife Melissa and their two children. In 1994, he published his first book about the island’s history, Away Off Shore, followed by Abram’s Eyes (1998). He was the founding director of Nantucket’s Egan Maritime Institute and is still a research fellow at the Nantucket Historical Association.

Philbrick is the author of the New York Times bestseller, In the Heart of the Sea (2000), which won the National Book Award for nonfiction and was the basis for the 2015 movie of the same title directed by Ron Howard. His New York Times bestseller Mayflower was a finalist for both the 2007 Pulitzer Prize in History and the Los Angeles Times Book Award, won the Massachusetts Book Award for nonfiction, and was named one the ten “Best Books of 2006” by the New York Times Book Review. His other acclaimed books include The Last Stand (2010), Why Read Moby-Dick? (2011), Bunker Hill: A City, a Siege, a Revolution (2013), Valiant Ambition: George Washington, Benedict Arnold, and the Fate of the American Revolution (2016). In March 2018, Penguin published a new edition of his sailing memoir Second Wind: A Sunfish Sailor, an Island, and the Voyage that Brought a Family Together, and in October 2018, Viking will publish his third book about the American Revolution, In the Hurricane’s Eye: The Genius of George Washington and the Victory at Yorktown.

Philbrick’s writing has appeared in Vanity Fair, The New York Times Book Review, The Wall Street Journal, the Los Angeles Times, and The Boston Globe. He has appeared on the Today Show, the Morning Show, Dateline, PBS’s American Experience, C-SPAN, and NPR. He and his wife Melissa still live on Nantucket.