Acclaimed writer Philip Hoare confronts our fascination with one of the most mysterious animals in the ocean, the whale. Travelling in the footsteps of Ishmael, the narrator of Herman Melville's novel 'Moby-Dick', he visits the whaling ports of New England. He searches for the truth behind the story, drawing an eerie parallel between Captain Ahab's crazed pursuit of the great White Whale and today's war on terror. In the Atlantic, Hoare has his own encounter with the legendary sperm whale.
