From the Bible & rsquo;s & ldquo;Canst thou raise leviathan with a hook? & rdquo; to Captain Ahab & rsquo;s & ldquo;From Hell & rsquo;s heart I stab at thee!, & rdquo; from the trials of Job to the legends of Sinbad, whales have breached in the human imagination as looming figures of terror, power, confusion, and mystery. In the twentieth century, however, our understanding of and relationship to these superlatives of creation underwent some astonishing changes, and with The Sounding of the Whale, D. Graham Burnett tells the fascinating story of the transformation of cetaceans from grotesque monste.