April History Bk Club - "The Wager" by David Grann

In April, we will read a popular book from a few years ago: David Grann's The Wager: A Tale of Shipwreck, Mutiny and Murder. Here is what the publisher has to say:

"A page-turning story of shipwreck, survival, and savagery, culminating in a court martial that reveals a shocking truth. The powerful narrative reveals the deeper meaning of the events on the Wager, showing that it was not only the captain and crew who ended up on trial, but the very idea of empire.

On January 28, 1742, a ramshackle vessel of patched-together wood and cloth washed up on the coast of Brazil. Inside were thirty emaciated men, barely alive, and they had an extraordinary tale to tell. They were survivors of His Majesty's Ship the Wager, a British vessel that had left England in 1740 on a secret mission during an imperial war with Spain. While the Wager had been chasing a Spanish treasure-filled galleon known as "the prize of all the oceans," it had wrecked on a desolate island off the coast of Patagonia. The men, after being marooned for months and facing starvation, built the flimsy craft and sailed for more than a hundred days, traversing nearly 3,000 miles of storm-wracked seas. They were greeted as heroes.

But then . . . six months later, another, even more decrepit craft landed on the coast of Chile. This boat contained just three castaways, and they told a very different story. The thirty sailors who landed in Brazil were not heroes - they were mutineers. As accusations of treachery and murder flew, the Admiralty convened a court-martial to determine who was telling the truth. The stakes were life-and-death--for whomever the court found guilty could hang."

Please remember that this is, first and foremost, a book club. Like any local book club, the point is discussion about a shared experience - reading a book! It is not a lecture series. So as usual, get a copy of the book, read it and then join us for another interesting discussion. We continue to meet virtually because so many of our members now join us from locations outside the D.C area.

A zoom link to the discussion will be sent a day before the meeting.