The mighty sperm whale, or physeter macrocephalus, was hunted nearly to extinction in the 19th century, as the world's demand for energy outpaced the reproduction of the sperm whales as a resource. Valuable for the spermaceti found in their head cavities, which can be burned cleanly for light and energy, sperm whales quickly became nothing more than a swimming commodity, to be slaughtered and dismantled as quickly and efficiently as possible. New England, and specifically the island of Nantucket, Massachusetts, began a wealthy dynasty of whaling explorers, who traversed the seas as pirates, looting the deep and probing its secrets. This bloody practice declined as new forms of energy emerged, and in the 1980s commercial whaling was banned internationally. However, the continued American fascination with whaling, which allowed Melville's great novel to become a masterpiece, serves as a perpetual symbol of the struggle between the capitalist drive for money and progress and the environmentalist quest for conservation and sustainability.