标题：Andrew C. Jampoler. Sailors in the Holy Land: The 1848 American Expedition to the Dead Sea and the Search for Sodom and Gomorrah. Annapolis: Naval Institute Press , 2005. 344 pages, illustrated, maps and photographs.
摘要：In this striking book we are often a long way from the sea, indulging a wide-ranging, discursive meander across a curious spectrum of subjects, from adultery to Oscar Wilde by way of sodomy and the service lives of mid 19thcentury American naval officers. While the book focuses on a naval expedition Jampoler feels no obligation to stick to his main subject. Lieutenant William F Lynch USN, later CSN and his command, the painfully literal USSS (United States Supply Ship) Supply take centre stage in the opening passages, and in a voyage that leaves no side street unexplored their origins experiences and services are recounted. Lynch, we discover, went on his expedition in the throes of divorcing his adulterous wife, probably aware of the fact that one of her lovers had been his own brother. How far these circumstances affected his command is uncertain, but the search for biblical truth in the Holy Land may have provided him with some comfort.
