American Conservative
"The Soviet Union . . . committed one of the greatest environmental crimes of the twentieth century, the killing of hundreds of thousands of whales in the 1960s and ’70s, which pushed some species to the point of extinction? That crime, and how it was hidden for decades and ultimately exposed, is the subject of Red Leviathan. . . . The heroes of Jones’s book are the Soviet scientists who blew the whistle on their country’s overfishing. They gathered secret internal documents showing real catch numbers and compared them to the fake ones submitted to the IWC."
Jakobina K. Arch
American environmentalists are inclined to see the United States’ Cold War opponent as a villain. Telling the story of the Soviet role in modern whaling, Jones complicates this perspective by acknowledging the Soviets’ disproportionate impact while also looking beyond it. He illuminates the contradictions and tensions among different players within the Soviet whaling industry—whalers, the whale scientists who worked with them, and other Russians not directly involved in but still impacted by and shaping the demands of the industry. From the first attempts at whaling in Peter’s Russia to the protest era and pushback against whaling by Greenpeace and the Sea Shepherds, Red Leviathan combines thorough research and great storytelling to fill a necessary gap in the history of global whaling.
Five Books
"What this author calls the tragic Soviet experiment (a phrase which I think applies to more things than just whaling) was about the predatory use of nature—like the predatory use of its own populace, like the predatory use of everything—and this led to destruction. The whaling was as anti-ecological as you can imagine. . . . the further away we get from Soviet times, the more it stands out in its unprecedented inhumanity, including to whales."
Moscow Times
"Jones explores the hitherto untold story of Soviet whaling, which, over the course of the twentieth century, resulted in the slaughter of more than half a million of the planet’s largest animals. Jones, a professor of history at the University of Oregon, explores how this profitable industry was driven by far more than mere commercial considerations, but by pride, competition and a deep-rooted sense of historical injustice. . . . Soviet whaling officially ended in 1987 but its story is only just being told today. Red Leviathan is a moral story that is neither accusatory nor forgiving, but which reveals how Soviet hopes that communism would forge a better relationship with the natural world were thoroughly disappointed."
Ocean Yearbook - Randall Reeves
"The public unveiling only began in 1993, when Alexey Yablokov delivered 'what amounted to a national confession' at an international scientific conference in Texas. In Red Leviathan, Jones places what has been learned since then in a social, economic, and geopolitically strategic as well as ideological context. He does this in a rigorous and engaging way."
H-Russia
"Red Leviathan is a fascinating history of Russian and Soviet whaling that spans between Odesa, Ukraine, and Vladivostok, in eastern Russia, and beyond. Jones succeeds in chronicling the devastating extent of Soviet whaling in a highly interesting and readable text which includes personal reflections on his interactions with whalers and the nuances of the whaling industry. While Jones argues that extensive Soviet whaling, especially of endangered species, amounted to a genocide of whales, he acknowledges that these activities also contributed to an expansion of scientific knowledge about whale species, which fueled the conservation movement focused on their salvation. Jones’s work is especially important as it places the Soviet history of whaling in a global context and compares it to efforts by other states, such as Norway and Japan."
Choice
"Almost everything about this book is astonishing. Jones teaches environmental history, but he writes like a virtuoso journalist. . . . This text is emotionally affecting but objective, not sentimental—altogether describable as a tour de force. . . . Highly recommended."
H-Environment
"A well-researched and clearly written book of immense interest to scholars working in a variety of fields. Jones provides a detailed and insightful history of whaling in the Soviet Union. The book tells a fascinating story, not widely known in the West: it explains how and why the USSR killed more than half a million whales during the twentieth century, and why it ceased just in time to stop the complete extinction of numerous whale species. . . . An excellent book."
Times Literary Supplement
Jones asks why the Soviets embarked on this irrational and destructive journey, and how they got away with it—until they didn’t. One answer (worth bearing in mind in view of the latest battleground over gas pipelines and wheat fields in Ukraine) is that pride, competition, and a sense of historical injustice motivated Soviet whaling far more than commercial considerations. . . . Ultimately it wasn’t economics or ideology but a growing spotlight on these practices that put an end to the carnage. . . . As whale populations begin to revive, Jones shows the power of a handful of environmental activists on tiny inflatable Zodiac boats, pushing back against a tide of destruction."
Jason M. Colby
This is a really important story. Jones has set out to reframe much of what we know about twentieth-century environmental history, particularly of the oceans. His archival work is extraordinarily impressive, and the oral history interviews with Russian whalers and marine biologists are, to my knowledge, unique in English-language historical scholarship. But it is Jones’s incorporation of whale science and his own personal vignettes that make this book special. Soviet whaling had the single greatest impact on world whale populations in the postwar period, but no other historian has told its inside story. Red Leviathan is a game-changer.
Northern Mariner
"A multi-dimensional examination of pelagic whaling by the USSR. Based on deep study and sympathetic interviews of participants in Russia and Ukraine this notable book covers a variety of topics in an invitingly clear and well-organized narrative. This is backstopped by endnotes and an excellent index. A rewarding and authoritative read."
Engineering and Technology
"A gripping and heart-breaking chronicle of the Soviet regime’s war (not a ‘conflict’, ‘special operation’ or any other euphemism) against the freedom of our natural environment and its inhabitants it wanted to dominate."
Quarterly Review of Biology
"Ryan Tucker Jones presents a well-researched, enticing narrative combining firsthand observations and interviews in Russia, examination of Soviet and other whaling literature, plus investigative digging into archives, even a primary school library."
Douglas Rogers
"Greater attention to vulnerability and intimacy are likely only two of a great many ways in which studies of human-nonhuman relationships in Russia might develop along the general lines suggested by [this book]. Future authors taking up similar questions might do well to move still closer to what I termed, at the outset, the literary/artistic and shamanic strands of writing about relationships between humans and other species in Russia. As Jones’s incorporation of whale poetry and fiction nicely if briefly exemplifies, these domains overlap much more than past scholarship has admitted."
Marine Biologist
"A very well-researched, readable, and well-illustrated book that provides a fascinating new insight into what was effectively the end of the 'modern whaling' era."
New York Review of Books - Martha C. Nussbaum
"Vivid and sober. . . . [A] fascinating account of the history of Soviet and Russian whaling.
