A new framework contextualizes crucial international security issues at sea in the Indo-Pacific Competition at sea is once again a central issue of international security. Nowhere is the urgency to address state-on-state competition at sea more strongly felt than in the Indo-Pacific region, where freedom of navigation is challenged by regional states’ continuous investments in naval power, and the renewed political will to use it to undermine its principles. The New Age of Naval Power in the Indo-Pacific provides an original framework in which five “factors of influence” explain how and why naval power matters in this pivotal part of the world. An international group of contributors make the case that these five factors draw upon a longstanding influence of naval power on regional dynamics and impact the extent to which different states in the region use naval power: the capacity to exert control over sea-lanes, the capacity to deploy a nuclear deterrent at sea, the capacity to implement the law of the sea in an advantageous way, the ability to control marine resources, and the capacity for technological innovation. The New Age of Naval Power in the Indo-Pacific offers a fresh approach for academics and policy makers seeking to navigate the complexity of maritime security and regional affairs.

China's expanding air and naval capabilities, coupled with the proliferation of long-range anti-ship and anti-air missile systems, are making US naval diplomacy an increasingly risky enterprise. It is surprising therefore how little attention has been devoted to comparing the way in which different administrations have reacted in dissimilar manners to major naval incidents. This book provides the first comparative analysis of multiple cases. In particular, it examines three incidents: the Maine incident (1898), which led to war in the short term; the Lusitania crisis (1915), which set the trajectory for intervention; and the Panay incident (1937), which was settled diplomatically. After scrutinizing these incidents and the domestic and international factors shaping the subsequent crisis, Douglas Carl Peifer analyses the presidential decision making in terms of options considered and policies selected. The book draws upon international relations and coercion theory but emphasizes the importance of context, complexity, and contingency when assessing presidential decision making. The contemporary tensions in East Asia, the Persian Gulf, the Baltic, and the Black Sea are increasingly vexing US naval diplomacy. By analyzing how Presidents William McKinley, Woodrow Wilson, and Franklin Delano Roosevelt responded to the Maine, Lusitania, and Panay incidents, this book provides an essential instrument to deal with the growing threats of a new naval crisis.

Examines Naval co-operation between Britain and Russia and the often underappreciated prowess of the Russian navy. Naval co-operation between Britain and Russia continued throughout the eighteenth century, with Britain providing huge assistance to the growth of Russia's navy, and Russia making an essential but often overlooked contribution to Britain's maritime power in the period. From 1698 when Tsar Peter the Great served briefly as a trainee shipwright at Deptford dockyard Russia recruited British, often Scottish, shipwrights, engineers, naval officers and naval surgeons who both helped build up the Russian navy and who were also key advisers to the Russian navy at sea. At the same time, naval stores from Russia, especially after Britain lost the American colonies, were vital for the maintenance of Britain's fleet. Moreover, as this book argues, Russian naval power was much more formidable than is often realised, with the Russian navy active alongside the British fleet in the North Sea and winning decisive battles against the Ottoman navy in the Mediterranean, including the battles of Cesme in 1770 and Navarino in 1827. Britain did well to have Russia as a naval ally rather than an enemy. This book provides a comprehensive overview of this important subject, at a time when Britain's relationship with Russia is of considerable concern.

Maritime piracy's improbable re-emergence following the end of the Cold War was surprising as the image of pirates evokes masted galleons and cutlasses. Yet, the number of incidents and their intensity skyrocketed in the 1990s and 2000s off of the coasts of Indonesia, Malaysia, the Philippines, India, Bangladesh, Nigeria, and Somalia. As Ursula Daxecker and Brandon Prins demonstrate in Pirate Lands, Maritime piracy-like civil war, terrorism, and organized crime-is a problem of weak states. Surprisingly, though, pirates do not operate in the least governed areas of weak states. Daxecker and Prins address this puzzle by explaining why some coastal communities experience more pirate attacks in their vicinity than others. They find that pirates do well in places where elites and law enforcement can be bribed, but they also need access to functioning roads, ports, and markets. Using statistical analyses of cross-national and sub-national data on pirate attacks in Indonesia, Nigeria, and Somalia, Daxecker and Prins detail how governance at the state and local level explain the location of maritime piracy. Additionally, they employ geo-spatial tools to rigorously measure how local political capacity and infrastructure affect maritime piracy. Drawing upon interviews with former pirates, community members, and maritime security experts, Pirate Lands offers the first comprehensive, social-scientific account of a phenomenon whose re-appearance after centuries of remission took almost everyone by surprise.

"Many peoples throughout history have fought pirates," writes Alfred Bradford in Flying the Black Flag. "Some have lost and some have won. We should learn from their experience." From Odysseus--the original pirate of literature and lore--through Blackbeard and the feared pirates of the Spanish Main, his book reveals the strategies and methods pirates used to cheat, lie, kill, and rob their way into the historical record, wreaking terror in their bloody wakes. The story begins with a discussion of Piracy and the Suppression of Piracy in the Ancient World. It details, for example, how the Illyrians used pirate vessels to try to wrest control of the Adriatic Coast from the mighty Romans, as well as how the intrepid Vikings went from pirate raids to the conquest of parts of Western Europe. Moving into the 17th century and to the New World, Bradford depicts the golden age of the pirates. Here are the Spanish Buccaneers and the fabled Caribbean stronghold of Tortuga. Here are Henry Morgan, Captain Kidd, and their fearsome counterparts. But piracy was hardly just a Western phenomenon. "The Barbary Pirates" looks East to examine the struggle between Christian and Muslim in the Mediterranean, while "To the Shores of Tripoli" details the American conflict with the Barbary Pirates. It reveals the lessons of a war conducted across a great distance against a nebulous enemy, a war in which victory was achieved only by going after the pirates' sponsor. On the South China Coast, we meet the first Dragon Lady, leader of Chinese pirates. As intriguing as these tales of the past are in and of themselves, the stories and their swashbuckling villains hold lessons for us even today. In "Conclusions andReflections," Bradford gathers all of the chords together, discussing the conditions under which piracy arises, the conditions under which pirates organize and become more powerful, and the methods used to suppress piracy. Finally, he examines similarities between pirates and terrorists--and whether the lessons learned from the wars against pirates of the past might also apply to modern day terrorists.

An account of the naval commander Roger of Lauria and his command of warfare at sea. Just before Vespers on 30 March 1282 at the Church of the Holy Spirit on the outskirts of Palermo, a drunken soldier of the occupying French forces of Charles of Anjou accosted a young Sicilian noblewoman. It sparked a bloody conflagration, the so-called War of the Sicilian Vespers, that would ultimately involve every part of the Mediterranean. The struggle for the coveted throne of Sicily eventually enmeshed all the great powers of medieval Europe - thepope, the Byzantine Emperor and the kings of France, England and Aragon. Because the core of the Kingdom of Sicily was a wealthy, strategic island dominating the centre of the Mediterranean, the battles were fought mostly at sea.And in war at sea, a single figure proved pre-eminent: Roger of Lauria - Aragon's "Admiral of Admirals". In the course of some twenty years of naval combat, he orchestrated decisive victories in six pitched battles and numerous limited actions, never once suffering a defeat: a feat never equalled - not even by the legendary Lord Horatio Nelson. Drawing from multiple Sicilian and Catalan sources as well as Angevin and Aragonese registers, this chronological narrative details the tactics and strategy Lauria employed to become the most successful galley fleet commander of the Middle Ages, while highlighting a crucial conflict at a pivotal point in European history, long overshadowed by the Hundred Years War. CHARLES D. STANTON is a retired US naval officer and airline pilot; he gained his PhD at the University of Cambridge.

This book examines the political and social impact of English overseas merchants during the upheavals of the late seventeenth and early eighteenth centuries. It explores the merchant societies of London, York, and Liverpool, and illuminates the growing prominence of the overseas trader in the press and in Parliament.

If you centre a globe on Kiritimati (Christmas Island), all you see around it is a vast expanse of ocean. Islands of various sizes float in view while glimpses of continents encroach on the fringes, but this is a view dominated by water. The immense stretch of the Pacific Ocean is inhabited by a diverse array of peoples and cultures bound by a common thread: their relationship with the sea. The rich history of the Pacific is explored through specific objects, each one beautifully illustrated, from the earliest human engagement with the Pacific through to the modern day. With entries covering mapping, trade, whaling, flora and fauna, and the myriad vessels used to traverse the ocean, Pacific builds on recent interest in the voyages of James Cook to tell a broader history. This visually stunning publication highlights the importance of an ocean that covers very nearly a third of the surface of the globe, and which has dramatically shaped the world and people around it.

The complete story of the tragic loss of the passenger steamer City of Columbus. In the early hours of January 18th, 1884, the majestic steamship ran aground on the treacherous Devil's Bridge rocks and reef off the Gay Head Cliffs in Aquinnah, Massachusetts near Martha's Vineyard. Of the 45 officers and 87 passengers, only 17 crew and 12 passengers made it back to land, making this shipwreck one of the worst ocean disasters of all time. Reporter George Hough spent years following this story, tracking down survivors and witnesses to piece together the horrific details and tragic mistakes to uncover the mystery of the disaster on Devil's Bridge.

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.

This is the exciting story of the American Navy and its important role in our nation's history from the Revolutionary War to the dawn of the New World Order. Presented in two volumes, Robert Love shows how the interplay of international affairs, foreign policy, partisan politics, changing technology, and Navy views has shaped the American fleet and continues to define its missions and operations.

This sweeping recasting of American naval history is a bold departure from the conventional "sea power" approach. Volume Two of History of the U.S. Navy shows how the Navy in World War II helped to upset the traditional balance in Europe and Asia. Days after Pearl Harbor, Admiral Ernest J. King took command of a navy overwhelmed by the demands of war. King devised grand strategies to defeat the Axis and promoted a cadre of fighting admirals-Halsey, Spruance, Hewitt, Kincaid, and Turner-who waged unprecedented in complexity and violence. New sources provide an entirely fresh look at the Battle of the Atlantic, the invasion of Europe, and the great naval campaigns in the Pacific. This book contains the first comprehensive interpretation of the U.S. Navy's role in the Cold War, when the United States found itself the global bailiff. Love demonstrated that the Navy's abiding priority was to capture and maintain a share of the strategic bombardment mission by building new ships, planes, submarines, and mission to

""The art of command is...to be the complete master, and yet the complete friend of every man on board; the temporal lord and yet the spiritual brother of every rating; to be detached and yet not dissociated.' A Seaman's Pocket-Book, 1943', has found huge appeal with the British public. Presented in the same format, the Officer's Handbook gathers together useful advice and instruction for those naval officers fighting the Second World War on all aspects of their job, expressed in the benevolent language of the day, when authority was respected. The Handbook has been compiled and edited by Brian Lavery, who provides commentary and an introduction. Sections include: the Officer's Aid Memoire containing notes of the training course at one of the officer training schools; Notes for medical officers and treatment of battle casualties afloat; Notes for captains on taking command of their first ship; Notes for commanding officers; Notes on the handling and safety of ships and notes on dealing with disobedience and mutiny. While suffused with nostalgia and charm, the various contents of this book are an authentic presentation of matters of training, authority and deportment in the wartime navy. The book is sure to appeal not only to those who served in the war or had a relative who was in the officer class, but also to anyone who wants to gain a greater understanding of the day-to-day administration of the wartime navy.

With the opening of sea routes in the fifteenth century, groups of men and women left Portugal to establish themselves across the ports and cities of the Atlantic or Ocean sea. They were refugees and migrants, traders and mariners, Jews, Catholics, and the Marranos of mixed Judaic-Catholic
culture. They formed a diasporic community known by contemporaries as the Portuguese Nation. By the early seventeenth century, this nation without a state had created a remarkable trading network that spanned the Atlantic, reached into the Indian Ocean and Asia, and generated millions of pesos that
were used to bankroll the Spanish empire. A Nation Upon the Ocean Sea traces the story of the Portuguese Nation from its emergence in the late fifteenth century to its fragmentation in the middle of the seventeenth and situates it in relation to the parallel expansion and crisis of Spanish imperial
dominion in the Atlantic. Against the backdrop of this relationship, the book reconstitutes the rich inner life of a community based on movement, maritime trade, and cultural hybridity. We are introduced to mariners and traders in such disparate places as Lima, Seville and Amsterdam, their
day-to-day interactions and understandings, their houses and domestic relations, their private reflections and public arguments. This finaly-textured account reveals how the Portuguese Nation created a cohesive and meaningful community despite the mobility and dispersion of its members; how its
forms of sociability fed into the development of robust transatlantic commercial networks; and how the day-to-day experience of trade was translated into the sphere of Spanish imperial politics of commercial reform basedon religious-ethnic toleration and the liberalization of trade. A microhistory,
A Nation Upon the Ocean Sea contributes to our understanding of the broader histories of capitalism, empire, and diaspora in the early Atlantic.

Winning the Battle of the Atlantic was critical to Britain's survival in the Second World War. The British Merchant Navy suffered enormous losses of both ships and men, particularly in the early years of the war. Sailing through U-boat wolf-packs across the Atlantic, or on the perilous routes to Malta and Murmansk, took a special kind of courage. Ships often sank within minutes of being torpedoed. Survivors is the history of this epic struggle. It is a graphic account of how the ships were attacked and sunk, how crews reacted, how they attempted to launch their lifeboats and how they ended up swimming or clinging to debris, or making long voyages in lifeboats or on rafts. Death might come at any stage, yet the will to live and the resourcefulness and skill of the seamen enabled a surprising number to survive.
""There was a terrific smash and everything was pandemonium on deck. The wheel house collapsed on top of me and I was trapped by the concrete slabs which had fallen on me and pinned me to the deck. I think that the ship sank in about thirty seconds after breaking in two ... Although I was trapped, I could see everything over my head. The stern burst into flames and I saw flames forward. I could see the water coming up and coming over my head. The ship hit the bottom and turned over, the debris was thrown off me and I was released and I came to the surface.""--Sinking of SS Abukir, 28 May 1940

"Each of the twelve authors deftly plumb the depths of documentary sources, literary analyses, personal observations, biographical and historical accounts to improve vastly on the seemingly two-dimensional nature of the pirate"
--"The Great Circle: Journal of the Australian Association for Maritime History"

"With this collection, those swashbuckling heroes, or villains, ranging the wide seas in search of pillage and plunder, become individuals and groups situated firmly within their own geographic, political, economic, and historical contexts."
--"Journal of Folklore Research"

The romantic fiction of pirates as swashbuckling marauders terrorizing the high seas has long eclipsed historical fact. Bandits at Sea offers a long-overdue corrective to the mythology and the mystique which has plagued the study of pirates and served to deny them their rightful legitimacy as subjects of investigation.

With essays by the foremost scholars on these countercultural "social bandits"as Lingua Franca recently dubbed themthis collection examines various aspects of the phenomenon in the three main areas where it occurred: the Caribbean/Atlantic, the Mediterranean, and East Asia. We come to understand who pirates were, as well as the socio-economic contexts under which they developed and flourished.

Comparisons between various types of piracy illustrate differences in practice and purpose between pirates of different areas; social histories, including examinations of women pirates and their historical significance and circumstances, offer similar insight into the personal lives of pirates from diverse regions. Far from serving as dens of thieves, pirate ships were often highlyregulated microcosms of democracy. The crews of pirate vessels knew that majority rule, racial equality and equitable division of spoils were crucial for their survival, marking them as significantly more liberal than national governments.

Scholars, students and a general audience ever intrigued by talesand now truthsof piracy on the high seas will welcome Bandits at Sea.

The wealth generated both directly and indirectly by Caribbean slavery had a major impact on Glasgow and Scotland. Glasgow's Sugar Aristocracy is the first book to directly assess the size, nature and effects of this. West India merchants and plantation owners based in Glasgow made nationally significant fortunes, some of which boosted Scottish capitalism, as well as the temporary Scottish economic migrants who travelled to some of the wealthiest of the Caribbean islands. This book adds much needed nuance to the argument in a Scottish context; revealing methods of repatriating wealth from the Caribbean as well as mercantile investments in industry, banking and land and philanthropic initiatives.

The wealth generated both directly and indirectly by Caribbean slavery had a major impact on Glasgow and Scotland. Glasgow's Sugar Aristocracy is the first book to directly assess the size, nature and effects of this. West India merchants and plantation owners based in Glasgow made nationally significant fortunes, some of which boosted Scottish capitalism, as well as the temporary Scottish economic migrants who travelled to some of the wealthiest of the Caribbean islands. This book adds much needed nuance to the argument in a Scottish context; revealing methods of repatriating wealth from the Caribbean as well as mercantile investments in industry, banking and land and philanthropic initiatives.

This book surveys how the peoples bordering the Mediterranean, North Sea, English Channel and eastern Atlantic related to the sea in all its aspects between approximately 1000-1500 A.D. How was the sea represented in poems and other writings? What kinds of boats were used and how were they built? How easy was it to navigate on short or long passages? Was seaborne trade crucial to the economy of this area? Did naval warfare loom large in the minds of medieval rulers? What can be said more generally about the lives of those who went to sea or who lived by its shores? These are the major questions which are addressed in this book, which is based on extensive research in both maritime archives and also in secondary literature. It concludes by pointing out how the relatively enclosed maritime world of Western Europe was radically changed by the voyages of the late fifteenth century across the Atlantic to the Caribbean and round Africa to India.