In this tale of passionate personalities and remarkable perisistence, the late scholars Seaburg and Paterson trace the career of Frederic Tudor of Boston, who first experimented with, and finally perfected, the shipment of ice from New England to southern climes. Encompassing the world of American maritime expansion and enterprise from the American Revolution to the Civil War, "The Ice King" follows Tudor and other strong willed members of his family through economic and personal successes and many failures on the way to "ineveitable and unaviodable" success.