"Peter Nichols has crafted a terrifyingly relevant historical narrative...A terrific read." -Nathaniel Philbrick, author of In The Heart of the Sea In 1871, an entire fleet of whaling ships was caught in an arctic ice storm and destroyed. Though few lives were lost, the damage would forever shape one of America's most distinctive commodities: oil. Oil and Iceis the story of one fateful whaling season that illuminates the unprecedented rise and devastating fall of America's first oil industry-and presages the rise and fall of the second.