William Redfern, surgeon, sailor, mutineer, prisoner and pioneer. From his birth in approximately 1775 to joining the Royal Navy as a ship's surgeon, it seemed William Redfern was destined for a life of relative wealth and status, but all that changed in 1797, when he was swept up in the infamous Nore Mutiny. At odds with his fellow officers, Redfern was court-martialed for his actions and sentenced to be hanged. Due to his profession, the sentence was commuted to transportation for life and on arrival in New South Wales, his exceptional surgical skills quickly saw him granted a full pardon. He was soon central to the new colony's medical services, was appointed personal surgeon to the Governor and Assistant Surgeon of the Colonial Medical Services, but despite becoming a wealthy landowner in his own right, he would forever carry the `convict's stain' in the eyes of certain members of the British Colonial establishment. Mostly remembered for the Sydney suburb that bears his name, this outstanding new biography, in two volumes, breathes fresh life into the story of William Redfern and follows the rise and fall and subsequent rise again of one of Australia's most influential early settlers. A pioneer of immunisation techniques and an advocate for the role of hygiene and nutrition he truly was one of the first to understand that prevention was better than cure.

Seafarers were the first workers to inhabit a truly international labour market, a sector of industry which, throughout the early modern period, drove European economic and imperial expansion, technological and scientific development, and cultural and material exchanges around the world. This volume adopts a comparative perspective, presenting current research about maritime labourers across three centuries, in the Mediterranean Sea and the Atlantic and Indian Oceans, to understand how seafarers contributed to legal and economic transformation within Europe and across the world. Focusing on the three related themes of legal systems, labouring conditions, and imperial power, these essays explore the dynamic and reciprocal relationship between seafarers' individual and collective agency, and the social and economic frameworks which structured their lives.

Our Blue Planet provides a comprehensive introduction to the field of maritime and underwater archaeology. Situating the field within the broader study of history and archaeology, this book advocates that an understanding of how our ancestors interacted with rivers, lakes, and oceans is integral to comprehending the human past. Our Blue Planet covers the full breadth of maritime and underwater archaeology, including formerly terrestrial sites drowned by rising sea levels, coastal sites, and a wide variety of wreck sites ranging across the globe and spanning from antiquity to World War II. Beginning with a definition of the field and several chapters dedicated to the methods of finding, recording, and interpreting submerged sites, Our Blue Planet provides an entry point for all readers, whether or not they are familiar with maritime and underwater archaeology or archaeology in general. The book then shifts to a thematic approach with chapters exploring human interactions with the watery world, both along the coasts and by ship. These chapters discuss the relationships between culture, technology, and environment that allowed humans through time to spread across the globe. Because ships were the primary means for humans to interact with large bodies of water, they are the focus of several chapters on the development of shipbuilding technology, the lives of sailors, and the uses of ships in exploration, expansion, and warfare. The book ends with chapters on how and why the non-renewable submerged archaeological record should be managed, so that both current and future generations can learn from the achievements and failures of past societies, as well as on how anyone can become involved in maritime and underwater archaeology. Throughout, the reader benefits from the personal reflections of a number of leading figures in the field.

The School of Salamanca in the Affairs of the Indies explores the significance of Salamancans, such as Vitoria and Soto, and related thinkers, such as Las Casas and Sepulveda, in the formation of the early modern political order. It also analyses early modern understandings of political order, with a focus both on the decline of the medieval universal world through the independence and secularization of political community and the establishment of continuous and imbalanced relations between various European and non-European political communities. Through its investigation, this book highlights how Salamancans and related thinkers clearly distinguished their understandings of political order from medieval thought, and did so in a different way to contemporary and later thinkers, such as Machiavelli, Luther, Bodin, and Grotius, particularly with regards to the Indies, "barbarian" worlds. It also reveals the strong contribution of the School of Salamanca in early modern political thought, both internally and externally. Salamancans imposed moral restrictions against "interior barbarism," that is, power beyond law, and included "exterior barbarism," that is, "barbarian" societies, in the common political order. Situating the School of Salamanca in the mainstream history of European political thought, The School of Salamanca in the Affairs of the Indies is ideal for academics and postgraduate students of intellectual history and of Spanish colonial expansion.

Slaves, convicts, and unfree immigrants have traveled the oceans throughout human history, but the conventional Atlantic World historical paradigm has narrowed our understanding of modernity. This provocative study contrasts the Atlantic conflation of freedom and the sea with the complex relationships in the Indian Ocean in the long 19th century.

From Cabinda in Angola to Dar es Salaam in Tanzania, 4 Reconnaissance Regiment conducted numerous clandestine seaborne raids during the Border War. They attacked strategic targets such as oil facilities, transport infrastructure and even Russian ships. All the while 4 Recce’s existence and capability was largely kept secret, even within the South African Defence Force.

With unparalleled access to previously top secret documents, 50 operations undertaken by 4 Recce, other Special Forces units and the South African Navy are described here in Iron Fist From The Sea. The daunting Operation Kerslig (1981), in which an operator died in a raid on a Luanda oil refinery and others were injured, is retold in spine-tingling detail. The book reveals the versatility and effectiveness of this elite unit and also tells of both the successes and failures of its actions. Sometimes missions go wrong, as in Operation Argon (1985) when Captain Wynand Du Toit was captured. This fascinating work will enthrall anyone with an interest in Special Forces operations.

Iron Fist From The Sea takes you right to the raging surf, to the adrenalin and fear that is seaborne raiding.

This book explores the historical and archaeological evidence of the relationships between a coastal community and the shipwrecks that have occurred along the southern Australian shoreline over the last 160 years. It moves beyond a focus on shipwrecks as events and shows the short and long term economic, social and symbolic significance of wrecks and strandings to the people on the shoreline. This volume draws on extensive oral histories, documentary and archaeological research to examine the tensions within the community, negotiating its way between its roles as shipwreck saviours and salvors.

Since its invention in Italy in the fourteenth century, marine insurance has provided merchants with capital protection in times of crisis, thus oiling the gears of trade and commerce. With a focus on customs, laws, and organisational structures, this book reveals the Italian origins of marine insurance, and tracks the spread of underwriting practices and institutions in Europe and America through the early modern era. With contributions from eleven leading researchers from seven countries, the book examines key institutional developments in the history of marine insurance. The authors discuss its invention in Italy, and its evolution from private to corporate structures, assessing the causes and impacts of various state interventions. Amsterdam and Antwerp are analysed as one-time key centres of underwriting, as is the emergence and maturity of marine insurance in London. The book evaluates an experiment in corporate underwriting in Cadiz, and the development of insurance institutions in the United States, before applying the metrics of underwriting to discuss commerce raiding in the Atlantic up to the nineteenth century.

During WWII the mission of the Navy was, first and foremost, 'holding the line' against the German surface fleet, preventing it from disrupting the vital transatlantic sea-lanes or escorting an invasion force to Britain. The importance of holding the line cannot be over-emphasised but it is often overlooked as there was no decisive battle on the seas surrounding Britain in WWII. This work is a strategic and operational history of the Home Fleet. It examines the role of the home fleet in allied strategy and how well the home fleet carried out the missions assigned to it within the framework of that strategy.

Scientific Practices in European History, 1200-1800 presents and situates a collection of extracts from both widely known texts by such figures as Copernicus, Newton, and Lavoisier, and lesser known but significant items, all chosen to provide a perspective on topics in social, cultural and intellectual history and to illuminate the concerns of the early modern period. The selection of extracts highlights the emerging technical preoccupations of this period, while the accompanying introductions and annotations make these occasionally complex works accessible to students and non-specialists. The book follows a largely chronological sequence and helps to locate scientific ideas and practices within broader European history. The primary source materials in this collection stand alone as texts in themselves, but in illustrating the scientific components of early modern societies they also make this book ideal for teachers and students of European history.

This short history is the first broad and selective survey of the phenomenon known as "jointness"--the co-operative operations of land and naval forces until the twentieth-century and of land, sea, and air forces since World War I. Touching on operational, doctrinal, and political dimensions, the survey ranges from the ancient Mediterranean to recent times while focusing on European and American experiences from the eighteenth through the twentieth centuries, including Desert Storm. Illustrative cases and reference materials are attuned to the interests of scholars, defense analysts, and students of military affairs. Jointness, subject of major concern to military historians, policymakers, politicians, and military professionals has in the past been covered within certain periods on a case by case or topical basis. This history begins instead with a broad survey from ancient to modern times and then focuses more closley on joint operations since World War I with wide-ranging examples to illustrate trends and patterns of Jointness. The survey closes with a discussion of the central problem of friction and other paradoxes connected with joint military operations. A selected bibliography provides an array of sources both for general readers and military professionals. Maps and appendices further enrich this important history.

A vivid and revealing portrait of shipboard life as experienced by eighteenth-century migrants from Europe to the New World In October 1735, James Oglethorpe's Georgia Expedition set sail from London, bound for Georgia. Two hundred and twenty-seven passengers boarded two merchant ships accompanied by a British naval vessel and began a transformative voyage across the Atlantic that would last nearly five months. Chronicling their passage in journals, letters, and other accounts, the migrants described the challenges of physical confinement, the experiences of living closely with people from different regions, religions, and classes, and the multi-faceted character of the ocean itself. Using their specific journey as his narrative arc, Stephen Berry's A Path in the Mighty Waters tells the broader and heretofore underexplored story of how people experienced their crossings to the New World in the eighteenth century. During this time, hundreds of thousands of Europeans-mainly Irish and German-crossed the Atlantic as part of their martial, mercantile, political, or religious calling. Histories of these migrations, however, have often erased the ocean itself, giving priority to activities performed on solid ground. Reframing these histories, Berry shows how the ocean was more than a backdrop for human events; it actively shaped historical experiences by furnishing a dissociative break from normal patterns of life and a formative stage in travelers' processes of collective identification. Shipboard life, serving as a profound conversion experience for travelers both spiritually and culturally, resembled the conditions of a frontier or border zone where the chaos of pure possibility encountered an inner need for stability and continuity, producing permutations on existing beliefs. Drawing on an impressive array of archival collections, Berry's vivid and rich account reveals the crucial role the Atlantic played in history and how it has lingered in American memory as a defining experience.

John Quirk loves history, drawing and boats and these three elements come together in this attractive and entertaining book. He has sought out obscure episodes or familiar events from the past and written engagingly about them, illustrated with his excellent colour cartoons. Where possible he relates the historical happenings and maritime moments to the present day, be it when tracing the history of the screw, misinformation (fake news) during the Second World War, plague ships in the fourteenth century, or Russia's ill-fated war with Japan in 1904. The events covered range from Henry V's invasion of France in 1415, consisting mainly of chartered French ships and paid for partially by Dick Whittington, to episodes in the Second World War, like the Somali Camel Corps capturing a German U-boat. Other historic figures involved include Horatio Nelson, Napoleon, Rudolf Diesel and Lawrence of Arabia. The 25 stories and over 100 cartoons are a treasure-trove of compelling, salt-infused, tales told with imagination and humour, with an eye on the present day, which will be enjoyed by anyone with an interest in maritime history (or even just history).

This book is an historical study of piracy in the ancient Greek and Roman world. It examines the origins and growth of piracy, the impact of piracy on trade, and the relationship between warfare and piracy, and evaluates attempts to suppress piracy by the states and rulers of the ancient world. A major innovation is the author's discussion of the way that pirates and piracy are portrayed in major works of classical literature, including Homer, Cicero and the ancient novels.

Imperial Steam explores the early history of steamship travel to Britain's imperial East. Drawing upon the wealth of voyage narratives which were produced in the first decades of the new route to India, the book examines the thoughts, emotions and experiences of those whose lives were caught up with the imperial project. The potent symbolism of the steamship, which exceeded the often harsh realities of travel, provided a convincing narrative for coming to terms with Britain's global empire - not just for passengers, but for those at home who consumed the ubiquitous accounts of steamship travel. Imperial Steam thus contributes to our understanding of the role of imperial networks in the production of the British imperial world view. -- .

Examining diversity as a fundamental reality of empire, this book explores European colonial empires, both terrestrial and maritime, to show how they addressed the questions of how to manage diversity. These questions range from the local to the supra-regional, and from the management of people to that of political and judicial systems. Taking an intersectional approach incorporating categories such as race, religion, subjecthood and social and legal status, the contributions of the volume show how old and new modes of creating social difference took shape in an increasingly early modern globalized world, and what contemporary legacies these 'diversity formations' left behind. This volume show diversity and imperial projects to be both contentious and mutually constitutive: one the one hand, the conditions of empire created divisions between people through official categorizations (such as racial classifications and designations of subjecthood) and through discriminately applied extractive policies, from taxation to slavery. On the other hand, imperial subjects, communities, and polities within and adjacent to empire asserted themselves through a diverse range of affiliations and identities that challenged any notion of a unilateral, universal imperial authority. This book highlights the multidimensionality and interconnectedness of diversity in imperial settings and will be useful reading to students and scholars of the history of colonial Empires, global history, and race.

For five centuries, since Vasco de Gama's ships began making the Indian Ocean a Portuguese lake, many governments used naval force to serve their political purposes. The sceptre of the seas passed from one nation to another, but political success did not always reward the strongest navy. This selective, international history of naval force as a political instrument, whether in peace or war, ranges from Calicut, navally cannonaded in 1501, to Baghdad, assailed by sea launched missiles in 1991.

In 1682, Charles II invited his scandalous younger brother, James, Duke of York, to return from exile and take his rightful place as heir to the throne. To celebrate, the future king set sail in a fleet of eight ships destined for Edinburgh, where he would reunite with his young pregnant wife. Yet disaster struck en route, somewhere off the Norfolk coast. The royal frigate in which he sailed, the Gloucester, sank, causing some two hundred sailors and courtiers to perish. The diarist Samuel Pepys had been asked to sail with James but refused the invitation, preferring to travel in one of the other ships. Why? What did he know that others did not? Nigel Pickford's compelling account of the catastrophe draws on a richness of historical material including letters, diaries and ships' logs, revealing for the first time the full drama and tragic consequences of a shipwreck that shook Restoration Britain.

This book by world-expert Barry Gough examines the period of Pax Britannica , in the century before World War I. Following events of those 100 years, the book follows how the British failed to maintain their global hegemony of sea power in the face of continental challenges.

This introduction to the years of the Napoleonic wars (1793 to 1815) tells the story of one of the keys to that great conflict, the Ship of the Line - the deadly battleships that played such a vital role in the battles. The author describes the ships' construction and armaments, the daily life of the men who served and the problems faced by commanders of the time in battles that include the Glorious First of June, the Battle of the Nile and Trafalgar.

Formed in 1901 by U.S. Steel Corporation, the Pittsburgh Steamship Company became the largest commercial fleet in the world and assumed a dominant role in Great Lakes shipping and the American steel industry. Tin Stackers tells its story: the ships, the men who sailed them, and the conditions that shaped their times. Drawing on company records and interviews with officials and sailors, Miller tells how the fleet kept organized labor off Great Lakes ships while leading the way in efficient operation, technological advancement, and employee safety. He emphasizes the human element in the company's history by relating the personal challenges faced by crews, and includes many archival photographs. Now navigating the waters of the lakes as the USS Great Lakes Fleet, Inc., these ships continue to play a part in commerce. Tin Stackers preserves their role in industrial history.

Maritime Piracy and its Control develops an economic approach to the problem of modern-day maritime piracy with the goal of assessing the effectiveness of remedies aimed at reducing the incidence of piracy.

When John Lee joined the Merchant Navy he had no idea of the adventures which were to come his way over the next ten years. An innocent sixteen year old from East Yorkshire, he was first apprenticed to the toughest of trampship companies before experiencing the potentially explosive delights of life on an oil tanker.Finally, as a young officer enjoying rather more civilised surroundings, he is obliged to learn the art of polite conversation as he mixes with affluent first class passengers and takes charge of a memorable rescue at sea.... The book is a fascinating insight into life in the Merchant Navy of the 1950's and 60's peppered with a wealth of characters and stories. Often hilarious, but always truthful and entertaining, life on board and in port is described in all its facets- the typhoons, icy, bone-chilling North Atlantic gales, freak waves and near disasters, awful food and the demon drink. The stories and anecdotes come thick and fast of gnarled seadogs and eccentric captains, knife fights and bandits as well as sex pests and the beguiling females who haunt the dock gates. This entertaining book is a window on a way of life now largely gone, a tribute to that unique breed of men who put their skills and mettle to the test as they crossed the wild, unforgiving oceans of the world.