When human's learned, in 1903, they could cruise over land in a heaver than air flying machine, they never dreamed of using an advanced model of the aeroplane as an instrument of war. The novelty of flying intrigued a young Glenn H. Curtiss-an inventor obsessed with speed. In the decade before World War One, Curtiss a dedicated tinkerer developed speedy float planes and flying boats which came to the attention of the U.S. Navy. During the run-up to America's involvement in the European war, ships carrying supplies to allies were being destroyed by the German U-boats. It was because of these losses of men and material that Navy brass decided a long range bomber should be developed to counter the German submarine menace. It was then Glenn Curtiss was contracted to draw plans for a large flying boat capable of flying across the Atlantic. Initially, four flying boats were built, but by this time the war had ended ant the mission of the flying boats no longer existed. However, America decided to send its new giant flying machines across the Atlantic as a show of Yankee know-how.

This volume sheds new light on one of the most remarkable polymaths of the English Renaissance. It offers original perspectives not only on Harriot's personal achievements in mathematics and natural philosophy but also on the wider realms of exploration, colonial ambition, and philosophical debate in which he earned the attention and respect of contemporaries in and far beyond the socially elevated circles of his two great patrons, first Walter Ralegh and then Henry Percy, the ninth Earl of Northumberland. Harriot's sixteenth-century world was one of unprecedented expansion in both scientific understanding and the discovery of new lands and peoples. The essays gathered here bring out forcefully the effect of this expanding vision, encapsulated in Harriot's Briefe and true report of the new found land of Virginia (1588), the first detailed description of America to be published in the English language. In addition to an essay by a recent biographer of Harriot, the volume contains reworked versions of seven Thomas Harriot Lectures, an annual lecture series inaugurated in 1990 in Oriel College, Oxford. It follows two earlier volumes of Harriot Lectures, also edited by Robert Fox, that appeared in 2000 and 2012.

The ship transcends the descriptive categories of place, vehicle and artefact; it is a cosmos, which requires its own cosmology. This is the subject matter of this volume, which falls within the broader, flourishing sub-field of maritime anthropology. Specifically, the volume first investigates the dialectic between the sea, the ship and the ship-dweller and shows how traits are exchanged between the three. It then focuses on land-dwellers, their understanding of seaborne existence and their invaluable contribution to the culture of ships. It shows that the romanticised views of life at sea that land-dwellers hold constitute an important aspect of the cosmology of ships and they too need to be considered if the polyvalence of ships is to be fully understood. In order for this cosmology to be written, some of the volume's contributors have travelled on ships and interviewed mariners, fishermen, boat-builders and boat-dwellers; others have traced the courses of ships in poems, films, philosophical texts, and collective myths of genealogy and heritage. Overall the volume shows where ships can go, and how they are perceived and experienced by those living and travelling in them, watching and waiting for them, dreaming and writing about them, and, finally, what literal and metaphorical crews man them.

This book, first published in 1928, is based on Chinese, Persian and Arabic sources, and provides the first scholarly account of the history of Persian maritime exploration.

The USS Saginaw was a Civil War gunboat that served in Pacific and Asian waters between 1860 and 1870. During this decade, the crew witnessed the trade disruptions of the Opium Wars, the Taiping Rebellion, the transportation of Confederate sailors to Central America, the French intervention in Mexico, and the growing presence of American naval forces in Hawaii.In 1870, the ship sank at one of the world's most remote coral reefs; her crew was rescued sixty-eight days later after a dramatic open-boat voyage. More than 130 years later, Hans Van Tilburg led the team that discovered and recorded the Saginaw's remains near the Kure Atoll reef. Van Tilburg's narrative provides fresh insights and a vivid retelling of a classic naval shipwreck. He provides a fascinating perspective on the watershed events in history that reshaped the Pacific during these years. And the tale of archaeological search and discovery reveals that adventure is still to be found on the high seas.

The South China Sea has long been regarded as one of the most complex and challenging ocean-related maritime disputes in East Asia. Recently it has become the locus of disputes that have the potential of escalating into serious international conflicts. Historical mistrust, enduring territorial disputes, and competing maritime claims have combined to weaken an at least partially successful regional security structure. Issues of concern include territorial sovereignty; disputed claims to islands, rocks, and reefs; jurisdiction over territorial waters, exclusive economic zones, and the seabed; regional and international rights to use the seas for military purposes; maritime security; rapid economic development; and environmental degradation. The fear is that increasing competition for energy and other resources will exacerbate conflicts and further fuel nationalism and sovereignty issues in the region. The SCS has an integrated ecosystem and is one of the richest seas in the world in terms of marine flora and fauna: coral reefs, mangroves, sea-grass beds, fish, and plants. National economic security can be easily affected by conflicts occurring in major international trade routes like the SCS, or how such an unclear situation might even give rise to environmental challenges in the future. The book creates an understanding as to why this region is important not only to the claimants but to global powers like the United States and India. The book examines current and potential conflicts in the South China Sea, and also evaluates how conflicts have been "managed" to date and suggests as to how they might be better managed in the future. This book concludes with recommendations for improving the situation in the region by ensuring a strong economic relationships, using high-resolution observation satellites, and undertaking joint development, and resource exploration etc.

Skilfully uses this notorious episode to illuminate the nature and extent of piracy in the period. The pirate attack on the British brig Morning Star, en route from Ceylon to London, near Ascension Island in 1828 was one of the most shocking episodes of piracy in the nineteenth century. Although the captain and many members of the crew were murdered by the pirates led by the notorious Benito de Soto, some survived, escaped and sailed the ship back to Britain. This book, based on extensive original research in Britain, Spain and Brazil, retells the story of the Morning Star, provides much new detail and corrects errors present in the many contemporary accounts of the attack. It sets the attack in the wider context of piracy in the period, and discusses many issues which the episode highlights: how pirates' careers began and developed; how they were pursued and tried, often with difficulty; what became of their treasure; how stories of the attack and of the survivors were sensationalised; how the women passengers on the ship endured their ordeal at the hands of the pirates and then, back in Britain, had to endure potential loss of their reputations.

Following successive international legal verdicts, Bangladesh is now an accredited maritime state. Possessing a spacious territorial sea and an extended continental shelf, with a maritime zone almost equalling its land borders, a 'window of opportunity' has opened for the country to realise its developmental aspirations. Yet, it faces numerous challenges, many of which are entwined. This book is a detailed analysis of Bangladesh's maritime strategy. It charts the country's maritime legacies, including disputes with both Myanmar and India and analyses the contributions of the leadership in the maritime territorial gains. The author examines Bangladesh's need to consolidate these newly reclaimed gains, whilst exploring the unremitting interest of major global power players in maintaining maritime resource exploitation, navigation and security. Finally, the author demonstrates how the country needs to embrace the notional principles of sustainable development of its ocean economy to utilize its resources and how it has since been coming to grips with the emerging concept of "blue economy" to enhance its enduring national development. The first systematic study on Bangladesh's maritime policy and the country's importance in the emerging geopolitical rivalry in the Indian Ocean, this book will be of interest to academics in the field of South Asian and Indian Ocean politics.

Gilbert White's name is known universally but, as Ted Dadswell insists in this book, important aspects of his work have frequently been overlooked even by scholarly editors. The Selborne naturalist (1720-1793) has been described as 'a prince of personal observers'; but a shrewd analytical questioning and comparing was also typical of his 'natural knowledge'. Exceptional even in his general aims, White studied the behaviour, the 'manners' and 'conversation', of his animals and plants. He saw, moreover, that an animal or plant and indeed a parish such as his own, was unitary in operation; again and again, a cause had numerous effects and an effect numerous causes. Observation could go forward in circumstances such as these, if one was both sharp-eyed and patient, but how could true investigation be managed? How could a particular cause or effect be isolated or tested? Here what Dadswell calls White's 'comparative habit' was put to good use. Gilbert White was a careful keeper of records, and using these comparatively he 'appealed to controls' while examining his living creatures. Questioning and testing even the 'entirely usual', White was brought back repeatedly to the notion of adaptability. His zoological findings often concerned 'changed or changing' animals (or birds) and their social and inter-personal relationships. Today, we can seem particularly well placed to appreciate his methods and factual claims; our 'ethologists' and ecologists have - seemingly - corroborated much of what he did. And yet just this corroboration renders him the more mysterious. To properly assess White as naturalist, we must be able to approach him not only scientifically but also historically. He hoped for the emergence of teams of behavioural workers but did not try to pre-empt what would be achieved only by such teams, and while he 'saw with his own eyes', as his friend John Mulso says, he was substantially affected by certain of his contemporaries and predecessors. His journals and notebooks show us the naturalist at work. When a perhaps unexpected combination of influences is allowed for, his 'unique' activities can be at least partially explained.

Portuguese Encounters with Sri Lanka and the Maldives: Translated Texts from the Age of the Discoveries is designed to provide access to translations of 16th- and 17th-century documents which illustrate various aspects of this encounter, combining texts from indigenous sources with those from the Portuguese histories and archives. These documents contribute to the growing understanding that different groups of European colonizers - missionaries, traders and soldiers - had conflicting motivations and objectives. Scholars have also begun to emphasize that the colonized were not mere victims but had their own agendas and that they occasionally successfully manipulated colonial powers. The texts in this volume help to substantiate these assertions while also illustrating the changing nature of the interactions. The present volume contains chapters covering the Portuguese arrival in Sri Lanka and their first encounters with the island and its peoples, their subsequent relations with Kandy and Jaffna, and a final chapter on Portuguese relations with the Maldive Islands. A historical introduction provides the context in which the documents can be read and a select bibliography indicates the most recent and authoritative secondary works on the subject

European Navies and the Conduct of War considers the different contexts within which European navies operated over a period of 500 years culminating in World War Two, the greatest war ever fought at sea. Taking a predominantly continental point of view, the book moves away from the typically British-centric approach taken to naval history as it considers the role of European navies in the development of modern warfare, from its medieval origins to the large-scale, industrial, total war of the twentieth century. Along with this growth of navies as instruments of war, the book also explores the long rise of the political and popular appeal of navies, from the princes of late medieval Europe, to the enthusiastic crowds that greeted the modern fleets of the great powers, followed by their reassessment through their great trial by combat, firmly placing the development of modern navies into the broader history of the period. Chronological in structure, European Navies and the Conduct of War is an ideal resource for students and scholars of naval and military history.

War in the Iberian Peninsula, 700-1600 is a panoramic synthesis of the Iberian Peninsula including the kingdoms of Leon and Castile, Aragon, Portugal, Navarra, al-Andalus and Granada. It offers an extensive chronology, covering the entire medieval period and extending through to the sixteenth century, allowing for a very broad perspective of Iberian history which displays the fixed and variable aspects of war over time. The book is divided kingdom by kingdom to provide students and academics with a better understanding of the military interconnections across medieval and early modern Iberia. The continuities and transformations within Iberian military history are showcased in the majority of chapters through markers to different periods and phases, particularly between the Early and High Middle Ages, and the Late Middle Ages. With a global outlook, coverage of all the most representative military campaigns, sieges and battles between 700 and 1600, and a wide selection of maps and images, War in the Iberian Peninsula is ideal for students and academics of military and Iberian history.

We are delighted to announce the publication, in partnership with The RNLI, of a special, Limited Edition of The Lifeboat: Courage on our Coasts. This edition is bound in real cloth and quarter-bound by hand using the yellow fabric from the over-jacket or trouser of the all-weather waterproofs used by the RNLI. The book is presented in a unique pouch which is handmade in the UK from the distinctive red fabric and reflective badge from a decommissioned RNLI inshore lifejacket. The Limited Edition book and pouch are presented in a Lifeboat display box bound in navy cloth. Only 350 Limited Editions have been produced and each is signed and numbered by Nigel Millard. The Royal National Lifeboat Institution is the charity that saves lives at sea. For nearly two hundred years its volunteers have shown courage and selflessness in facing storm and shipwreck to offer assistance. Never taken for granted, these qualities of service transcend the centuries to ring as true now as in the earliest days of the lifeboats. This unprecedented new book is a photographic celebration of everyday bravery, compassion, and outstanding commitment in the toughest of conditions. From the Cornish coasts to the Shetland Isles, we join crewman and photographer Nigel Millard as he travels the length of Britain and Ireland, living and working with his fellow lifeboatmen and accompanying them on their rescue missions. For those Limited Editions purchased through Bloomsbury, a minimum of 20% of the purchase price will be paid in support of the RNLI.

James Claude Beasley tells his personal story of service in the US Navy during World War II. Born in 1924 he was a typical teenager in the 1940's, a product of the Great Depression. He possessed a firm commitment to family and country. His recollections of time in the Navy consumed his thoughts and actions and followed him throughout his life. Though he seldom spoke of those years, he wrote about them over a period of time, hoping his thoughts would have meaning to others, especially his children and grandchildren. The challenges he faced in the Pacific area from 1942-1945 are vividly told in his unique story-telling manner. From his initial induction into military service in Winston Salem, NC, through the sinking of his ship, a baby carrier named USS Liscome Bay, to the end of the conflict and return to civilian life, he relates the events in a way you feel you are in the midst of all the happenings. His personal feeling are uppermost in his writings. How he dealt with discipline and commands, making important decisions, continuous dangers as well as strange dreams and deaths are all personal matters he had to face. If you did not know James Claude Beasley before reading his memoirs you will feel like you know him when you reach the end of his recollections.

This book explores perceptions of toleration and self-identity through an analysis of otherness' real experience of Italian travellers, Catholic missionaries and Maltese proto-journalists within Mediterranean border-spaces. Employing a multidisciplinary approach, which integrates the analysis of original and unpublished archival documentation with early modern European travel literature, the book shows how fluid subjects and border groups adapted to new environments, often generating information that made the Ottomans and their system of values real and dignified to an Italian audience. The interdisciplinary combining of historical methodology with the tools of comparative literature, anthropology and folklore studies provides a fresh perspective on concepts of tolerance as experienced in the early modern Mediterranean.

In the late seventeenth century, Spain dominated the Caribbean and Central and South America, establishing colonies, mining gold and silver, and gathering riches from Asia for transportation back to Europe. Seeking to disrupt Spain s nearly unchecked empire-building and siphon off some of their wealth, seventeenth- and eighteenth-century British adventurers both legitimate and illegitimate led numerous expeditions into the Caribbean and the Pacific. Many voyagers wrote accounts of their exploits, captivating readers with their tales of exotic places, shocking hardships and cruelties, and daring engagements with national enemies. Widely distributed and read, buccaneering and privateering narratives contributed significantly to England s imaginative, literary rendering of the Americas in the late seventeenth and early eighteenth centuries, and they provided a venue for public dialogue about sea rovers and their position within empire. This book takes as its subject the literary and rhetorical construction of voyagers and their histories, and by extension, the representation of English imperialism in popular sea-voyage narratives of the period."

Privateers of the Americas examines raids on Spanish shipping conducted from the United States during the early 1800s. These activities were sanctioned by, and conducted on behalf of, republics in Spanish America aspiring to independence from Spain. Among the available histories of privateering, there is no comparable work. Because privateering further complicated international dealings during the already tumultuous Age of Revolution, the book also offers a new perspective on the diplomatic and Atlantic history of the early American republic. Seafarers living in the United States secured commissions from Spanish American nations, attacked Spanish vessels, and returned to sell their captured cargoes (which sometimes included slaves) from bases in Baltimore, New Orleans, and Galveston and on Amelia Island. Privateers sold millions of dollars of goods to untold numbers of ordinary Americans. Their collective enterprise involved more than a hundred vessels and thousands of people-not only ships' crews but investors, merchants, suppliers, and others. They angered foreign diplomats, worried American officials, and muddied U.S. foreign relations. David Head looks at how Spanish American privateering worked and who engaged in it; how the U.S. government responded; how privateers and their supporters evaded or exploited laws and international relations; what motivated men to choose this line of work; and ultimately, what it meant to them to sail for the new republics of Spanish America. His findings broaden our understanding of the experience of being an American in a wider world.

While we know a great deal about naval strategies in the classical Greek and later Roman periods, our understanding of the period in between--the Hellenistic Age--has never been as complete. However, thanks to new physical evidence discovered in the past half-century and the construction of Olympias, a full-scale working model of an Athenian trieres (trireme) by the Hellenic Navy during the 1980s, we now have new insights into the evolution of naval warfare following the death of Alexander the Great. In what has been described as an ancient naval arms race, the successors of Alexander produced the largest warships of antiquity, some as long as 400 feet carrying as many as 4000 rowers and 3000 marines. Vast, impressive, and elaborate, these warships "of larger form"--as described by Livy--were built not just to simply convey power but to secure specific strategic objectives. When these particular factors disappeared, this "Macedonian" model of naval power also faded away--that is, until Cleopatra and Mark Antony made one brief, extravagant attempt to reestablish it, an endeavor Octavian put an end to once and for all at the battle of Actium. Representing the fruits of more than thirty years of research, The Age of Titans provides the most vibrant account to date of Hellenistic naval warfare.

THE #2 SUNDAY TIMES BESTSELLER 'As gripping as any thriller. History doesn't get any better than this' BILL BRYSON 'A brilliant read ... Game of Thrones but in the real world' ANTHONY HOROWITZ PICKED AS A BEST BOOK OF THE YEAR 2020 BY THE DAILY TELEGRAPH, THE GUARDIAN, THE DAILY MAIL AND THE DAILY EXPRESS. The sinking of the White Ship in 1120 is one of the greatest disasters England has ever suffered. In one catastrophic night, the king's heir and the flower of Anglo-Norman society were drowned and the future of the crown was thrown violently off course. In a riveting narrative, Charles Spencer follows the story from the Norman Conquest through to the decades that would become known as the Anarchy: a civil war of untold violence that saw families turn in on each other with English and Norman barons, rebellious Welsh princes and the Scottish king all playing a part in a desperate game of thrones. All because of the loss of one vessel - the White Ship - the medieval Titanic. 'Highly enjoyable' Simon Heffer 'Brilliant' Dan Jones 'Fascinating' Tom Bower The #2 Sunday Times bestseller on Sunday 18 June 2021

Whilst terms such as Lebensraum are commonly associated with National-Socialist ideology of the 1930s and 40s, ideas of racial living space were in fact generated in the previous decades by an international geographic community of explorers and academics. Focusing on one of the most influential figures within this group, Sven Hedin, this is the first study that systematically connects the geographic community to the intellectual history of the development of National-Socialist ideology and genocidal practices. The book demonstrates how colonial, racial and nationalistic policies were often spearheaded by explorers and geographers such as Hedin. In Germany, Britain, France, and Russia their positions as publicly recognized authors and reputable academics made them highly influential with politicians. Whilst this influence was to become most visible within Hitler's Germany, the debates were not by any means restricted to or even originated in, Germany. Germany was the home of some of the most prominent geographers, but this scientific community had a tradition of international debate and exchange with especially British, French and Russian geographic societies and institutions. Many issues that were later discussed and championed by National-Socialist ideology were aired and debated in this international setting - raising important questions about the international character and impact of National-Socialism. Tracing the intellectual history of the international geographic community and its relationship to National-Socialism, this study provides an assessment of Hedin's close involvement with the Nazi elite as a culmination of decades of political and scientific work. In so doing the book uncovers a long ignored or overlooked important connection between exploration, geographers, and genocide.

Contrary to earlier views of preindustrial Europe as an essentially sedentary society, research over the past decades has amply demonstrated that migration was a pervasive characteristic of early modern Europe. In this volume, the theme of urban migration is explored through a series of historical contexts, journeying from sixteenth-century Antwerp, Ulm, Lille and Valenciennes, through seventeenth-century Berlin, Milan and Rome, to eighteenth-century Strasbourg, Trieste, Paris and London. Each chapter demonstrates how the presence of diverse and often temporary groups of migrants was a core feature of everyday urban life, which left important marks on the demographic, economic, social, political, and cultural characteristics of individual cities. The collection focuses on the interventions by urban authorities and institutions in a wide-ranging set of domains, as they sought to stimulate, channel and control the newcomers' movements and activities within the cities and across the cities' borders. While striving for a broad geographical and chronological coverage in a comparative perspective, the volume aims to enhance our insight into the different factors that shaped urban migration policies in different European settings west of the Elbe. By laying bare the complex interactions of actors, interests, conflicts, and negotiations involved in the regulation of migration, the case studies shed light on the interrelations between burghership, guilds, relief arrangements, and police in the incorporation of newcomers and in shaping the shifting boundaries between wanted and unwanted migrants. By relating to a common analytical framework, presented in the introductory chapter, they engage in a comparative discussion that allows for the formulation of general insights and the identification of long term transformations that transcend the time and place specificities of the case studies in question. The introduction and final chapters connect insights derived from the individual case-study chapters to present wide ranging conclusions that resonate with both historical and present-day debates on migration.

Interpreting Maritime History at Museums and Historic Sites lays the groundwork for keeping this heritage alive in museums and historic sites. It provides the broadest spectrum of discussion and direction for those approaching new installations, projects and programming. Highlights of its wide-range include: *Historic vessels and shipbuilding *Freshwater maritime history, including a focus on regionalism *Maritime archaeology, including shipwrecks *Scientific history, including the environment *Recreational history, including rowing, fishing, racing, and cruising *Lighthouses and lifesaving stations

Interpreting Maritime History at Museums and Historic Sites lays the groundwork for keeping this heritage alive in museums and historic sites. It provides the broadest spectrum of discussion and direction for those approaching new installations, projects and programming. Highlights of its wide-range include: *Historic vessels and shipbuilding *Freshwater maritime history, including a focus on regionalism *Maritime archaeology, including shipwrecks *Scientific history, including the environment *Recreational history, including rowing, fishing, racing, and cruising *Lighthouses and lifesaving stations

'The authors are to be congratulated on a book which merits usage in the national curriculum.' - International Journal of Nautical Archaeology The raising of the Tudor warship Mary Rose in 1982 has made her one of the most famous ships in history, though there is a good deal more to her story than its terminal disaster. She served successfully in the Royal Navy for more than thirty years before sinking, for reasons still uncertain, during a battle off Portsmouth in 1545. There have been many books published about Mary Rose but this is the only one written largely by those who sailed with her. It is based around original documents, including all the known despatches written aboard Mary Rose by the commanding admirals. Extracts from accounts and other papers illustrate the building, equipping and provisioning of the ship. Although this is primarily a view from the quarter-deck, there are occasional glimpses of life below. The collection concludes with reports of the sinking, and of the first attempts to salvage the ship and her ordnance. The documents are presented in modern spelling and are set in context through linking narratives. Technical terms are explained, and the principal characters introduced. The texts are supplemented by contemporary images, and by photographs of the preserved ship and recovered objects. A new range of illustrations has been added to this edition, published forty years on from the raising of the hull.