Receive The Bounty: The True Story Of The Mutiny On The Bounty Scripted By Caroline Alexander Script

and a pile of coconuts

I was surprised while reading this book that no one I spoke with had ever heard of "the mutiny on the Bounty.
" In, Lieutenant William Bligh sailed his ship, the Bounty, to the beautiful island of Tahiti, He'd been there before with Captain James Cook, but now his goal wasn't exploration but commerce: he was to obtain breadfruit plants to start plantations in the West Indies.
Bligh was a conscientious captain who looked out for the health and welfare of his men, even while insisting upon order.
Unfortunately, a combination of combustible personalities, the beauty of Tahiti and its women, and a pile of stolen coconuts led to a mutiny that left Bligh andother sailors abandoned on the rough seas in a very small boat.
It was so heavily loaded that even small waves broke over the sides, and it seemed a certain death sentence.


But Bligh managed to sail his tiny boat and crew for,nautical miles over,land miles through violent storms and open ocean with almost no food! to a safe harbor.
Even more incredible was that only one man died in a clash with unfriendly islanders, News of this amazing feat and the eventual court martial of most of the mutineers who were apprehended a few years later in Tahiti, was talked about for decades.
Some were hanged for their crimes, but Fletcher Christian, the one who led the mutiny, was never seen again.


But the story doesn't end there, With savvy legal help, a couple of the mutineers managed to get pardons from His Royal Majesty, and several of the families involved worked hard to change the narrative of the incident.
Bligh's temper and salty language particularly over the stolen coconuts was blamed for inciting the mutiny.
But Caroline Alexander sorts through the facts and weaves a surprisingly interesting tale of the challenges of living on a small ship in a big ocean and even tells what happened to Christian.
And it's a very detailed story, with so much information that I found it slow reading in the beginning.
Before long, however, I was caught up in it and couldn't put it down, She even tells where Christian and the others ended up, and what became of the community they established.
The maps and illustrations were great to help follow the story, but I wished it had included a list of themen on the ship and their positions at the beginning, since it was hard to tell them all apart.
The extensive detail and backstory might put some readers off, but it turned out to be a great summer read.
" I picked up this book simply for some light bedtime reading and promptly lost a full night's sleep because I couldn't put it down.
Alexander's painstakingly reconstructed narrative of the iconic mutiny is absolutely spellbinding,

One has to admire the stamina of any historian who pours through thousands of pages of twohundred year old letters, transcripts of courts martial, popular accounts in contemporaneous circulation and standard historical books on the subject.
This is an achievement which is sure to oust Sven Walhrous's MUTINY AND ROMANCE IN THE HIGH SEAS as the definitive account of the Bounty misadventure.


What I find most remarkable is Ms, Alexander's convincing conclusion that the folk tales of Fletcher Christian's return to England have a firm and almost inescapable foundation in fact.
This amounts to an historical bombshell, yet she presents it concisely, logically and authoritatively

Most of us are well acquainted with the popular accounts of the mutiny.
One of the first real novels I ever read was Nordhoff and Hall's MUTINY ON THE BOUNTY.
One of the first campy pieces of cinematic dialogue I ever committed to memory was Charles Laughton's "I'll live to see you all of you hanging from the highest yardarm in the British fleet" speech.
The whole story seems at once familiar and simple, like a morality play, This book refutes almost everything we thought we knew about what happened on Aprilth,,

I won't spoil it all for you, The details in this book are plentiful and captivating, The characters are beautifully developed and richly portrayed, The author spends a great deal of time reconstructing the motives and actions of Peter Heywood Roger Byam in the Nordhoff and Hall book Franchot Tone in themovie.
The family connections in the British gentry and their dynamics in the mutiny are examined in depth.


When THE BOUNTY was released in, it was praised for its verisimilitude, Ms. Alexander's book makes that film seem like the Reader's Digest version of the event, The reality was far more dramatic and much less simple than any bromancegonewrong between Anthony Hopkins and Mel Gibson.


I don't know how to rate this delightful book except to say that I plan to read it again immediately.
It is THAT excellent Like most people, I'd heard of the story of the mutiny on the igtBounty, of Captain Bligh and Fletcher Christian, and the colony on the Pitcairn Islands but I never knew very much more.
This was a wonderful read I honestly could not put it down and I felt I learned much more than just about the mutiny itself, about Tahiti, and navigation, and the history of the British Navy.


I'd always assumed that Bligh was a tyrant and Christian somewhat justified in rebelling against him, but the real story seems to be quite different.
I finished this book feeling a great amount of sympathy and respect for Bligh: he seems to have genuinely had the best interests of his crew at heart, and they were treated no worse aboard the Bounty than they would have been aboard any of other Navy ship, indeed probably better.
The complains and accusations leveled against Bligh seem pitiful and lacking in substance,

Indeed, that would be my one criticism of this book, although it's perhaps an unfair one to level at the author.
There is never any real attempt to analyse just why the sailors rebelled, why Christian led the mutiny against Bligh.
But then Christian's tale was never told, his side of the story never revealed, so we'll always be left to wonder.
A really interesting read. My main complaint was that one of the first chapters of the book details what happened to the mutineers after the mutiny, but I didn't know who any of them were yet since I hadn't read the part of the book that actually deals with the mutiny.
And then, after the bulk of the book has happened, the author doesn't revisit where the mutineers went with the boat and what life they lived before being picked up to answer for their crimes.
So randomly in the middle of the book, I had to go back and reread the first chapter, now that I knew who all the people were, so I could have answers to all my questions.
Why the author decided to tell the story completely out of order is beyond me, It ruins the book, if you don't read out of order, It was a really bad decision,

But the rest of the book is great, if a tough slog at times.
This is not a book for a layperson, but more of an academic read with much quoting ofth century diaries and withth century grammar.
Don't pick it up if you're not willing to think and pay attention to it, If you are willing, you will be greatly rewarded for the story of Lt, Bligh and the Bounty is a good one, “All our experience with history should teach us, when we look back, how badly human wisdom is betrayed when it relies on itself” Martin Luther

Warning: the following review contains historical facts that may be considered spoilers if you desire to read this book without previous knowledge of the events.


I love to read books about people and events that I know little to nothing about.
I had certainly heard of Captain Bligh and the Mutiny on the Bounty, but that was the extent of my knowledge.
I have never seen any of the movies so I didn't know the reasons for the mutiny.
This book is a thorough examination of not only the mutiny but what happened before and after the historic event.


The commonly accepted reason for the mutiny was Bligh's "harsh tongue and unfair treatment of his crew" however, the author does an exceptional job of disproving this theory.
Below are some interesting things I learned while reading the book:

Bligh served as master on one of Captain James Cook's voyages.
Cook was the most highly regarded royal naval officer of his day,
Bligh was on the expedition where Cook was murdered by the natives in Hawaii,
The primary purpose of the voyage was to acquire breadfruit specimens from Tahiti,
Life on the seas at the time was very regimented, strict, and difficult, It was not an easy life, Bligh did indeed flog people for insubordination however, Alexander does an excellent job of showing that if anything he was easy on his men in comparison to other captains of the time.

Bligh and his men spent nearly eight months in Tahiti tending the breadfruit nursery and waiting for fairer weather.

Bligh's crew loved life on Tahiti and many of the men added the traditional Tahitian tattoos and became enamored with the women and the freedom of the islands.

The mutiny was led by Fletcher Christian, The author argues that the primary reason for the mutiny was due to many of the men desiring to return to Tahiti.

They put Bligh and the men loyal to him in a small boat in the middle of the Pacific Ocean.
The boat was very heavy laden and appeared dangerously close to sinking, There were men that wanted to join the captain but were not allowed due to the skills they possessed.

The penalty for mutiny at the time was death by hanging,
Bligh and his men were able to get their boat to safety and many thought it was the most amazing open boat voyage of its day.
Many of them were able to make it back to England,
A ship was sent to Tahiti to apprehend the mutineers, Many of the mutineers were in Tahiti however, the primary players in the revolt had left on the Bounty and for decades it was unknown where they went.

The ship bringing the mutineers back to England shipwrecked, Some of the prisoners died, The remaining nine were succesfully brought to England for trial,
There were four mutineers that were fingered by Bligh as innocent, After the trial they were released, Five of the mutineers were found guily and sentenced to hang, Two of the men were pardoned by the king thanks to their connections and family's money.
The other three were hung, Much of the book is focused on Peter Heywood, one of the two pardoned prisoners, It really is unclear who is innocent and who is guilty, Everyone had a different story of the event, The worst offenders were somewhere free and here were the notsoinnocent bystanders that were being put to death.
Injustice is a primary thread throughout the book,
Chistian and some of his loyal friends picked up their women and a few men in Tahiti and sailed to a remote uncharted island called Pitcairn.
There the mutineersall but one were all killed by Tahitian men who were being treated as prisoners.
The descendents and the last mutineer were discovered years later by Americans who helped solve the mystery of what happened to the remaining mutineers.

Since that time in many ways Christian was heralded as a man that overthrew the tyrant.
Many saw him as a hero and his family back home helped to build his reputation and in the meantime disparaged Bligh.


The above bullet points are all for my benefit since I have such a terrible memory.


It is obvious that the author did a lot of research for the book however, that may also be my primary complaint of the book.
It was much too long and too many pages were focused on the trial, It is obvious that this is where many of the author's sources came from, I

think it could have been a lot shorter, I really don't care to know the personal history of every passenger on the Bounty,

I would recommend this book if you are curious about the Mutiny on the Bounty however, don't say I didn't warn you about the length and the data overkill.
I really enjoyed a previous book that was also written by Caroline Alexander, That book was The Endurance which tells of Shackleton's Antarctic expedition and shipwreck, It really is one of the most amazing survival stories of all time, If you are looking for a good sailing adventure I would start there, .