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Join co-hosts Anne Moore and Chris Stacey for an innovative, exciting, and passionate approach to world literature. We select a country and pick three books over the course of three months: one contemporary, one non-fiction, and one classic. Our current country is Russa. In our third meeting we discuss the non-fiction selection Red Leviathan: The Secret History of Soviet Whaling by Ryan Tucker Jones. The book was shortlisted for the 2023 The Pushkin House Book Prize.
The Soviet Union killed over six hundred thousand whales in the twentieth century, many of them illegally and secretly. That catch helped bring many whale species to near extinction by the 1970s, and the impacts of this loss of life still ripple through today’s oceans. In this new account, based on formerly secret Soviet archives and interviews with ex-whalers, environmental historian Ryan Tucker Jones offers a complete history of the role the Soviet Union played in the whales’ destruction. Jones compellingly describes the ultimate scientific irony: today’s cetacean studies benefited from Soviet whaling, as Russian scientists on whaling vessels made key breakthroughs in understanding whale natural history and behavior.
We hope to see you in July to help us create a community you’ll find inviting, fun, engaging and a place to sustain meaningful friendships.
Date: Thursday, July 3, 2025
Time: 6:00PM Central
Location: Fine Arts Building, 410 South Michigan Avenue, Salon Des Artistes, Room 535, Chicago, IL 60605
Cost: $10 suggested donation.
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University of Washington Marine & Environmental Affairs
Photo Credit: University of Chicago Press, Promotional Material, Public Domain