Nathaniel Philbrick is an American author of history. His maritime history In the Heart of the Sea tells the story of the whaleship Essex, the real events that inspired Herman Melville's Moby-Dick, and it won the National Book Award for Nonfiction in 2000 before being adapted as a film. Philbrick also wrote Mayflower, a social and military history, and has been a Pulitzer Prize finalist.
