Episode description

The latest book from journalist and bestselling author David Grann details the true story of a 1741 shipwreck that he believes has "surprising resonance … with our own contemporary, turbulent times.”

When a squadron of ships left England in the fall of 1740, with secret hopes of capturing a Spanish galleon filled with gold, they had little idea what might befall them. They were overloaded with men, many who were old and infirmed. They were equipped with rudimentary navigation tools. And none of them had ever sailed around Cape Horn, the southernmost tip of South America, which we now know is one of the most treacherous seas on the planet.

The disastrous voyage ended with a shipwreck off the coast of Patagonia. But the story only deepens there. The cadre of men who survived faced starvation, murder and mutiny while trying to find a way home. And once they get there, the competing stories of what really happened on the island transfixed a nation.

As he did in his previous best sellers, “Killers of the Flower Moon” and “The Lost City of Z,” Grann recounts this true story with vivid detail. On this week’s Big Books and Bold Ideas, he told host Kerri Miller that, far from being just a swashbuckling tale, the story of The Wager echoes themes we grapple with today, like the dangers of imperialism and the war over truth.

Guest:

• David Grann is a New York Times bestselling author and an award-winning staff writer at The New Yorker magazine. His latest book is “The Wager: A Tale of Shipwreck, Murder and Mutiny.”

Use the audio player above to listen to the conversation.

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