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Books > Humanities > History > History of specific subjects > Maritime history
With American independence came the freedom to sail anywhere in the world under a new flag. During the years between the Treaty of Paris and the Treaty of Wangxi, Americans first voyaged past the Cape of Good Hope, reaching the ports of Algiers and the bazaars of Arabia, the markets of India and the beaches of Sumatra, the villages of Cochin, China, and the factories of Canton. Their South Seas voyages of commerce and discovery introduced the infant nation to the world and the world to what the Chinese, Turks, and others dubbed the "new people." Drawing on private journals, letters, ships' logs, memoirs, and newspaper accounts, Dane A. Morrison's True Yankees traces America's earliest encounters on a global stage through the exhilarating experiences of five Yankee seafarers. Merchant Samuel Shaw spent a decade scouring the marts of China and India for goods that would captivate the imaginations of his countrymen. Mariner Amasa Delano toured much of the Pacific hunting seals. Explorer Edmund Fanning circumnavigated the globe, touching at various Pacific and Indian Ocean ports of call. In 1829, twenty-year-old Harriett Low reluctantly accompanied her merchant uncle and ailing aunt to Macao, where she recorded trenchant observations of expatriate life. And sea captain Robert Bennet Forbes's last sojourn in Canton coincided with the eruption of the First Opium War. How did these bold voyagers approach and do business with the people in the region, whose physical appearance, practices, and culture seemed so strange? And how did native men and women-not to mention the European traders who were in direct competition with the Americans-regard these upstarts who had fought off British rule? The accounts of these adventurous travelers reveal how they and hundreds of other mariners and expatriates influenced the ways in which Americans defined themselves, thereby creating a genuinely brash national character-the "true Yankee." Readers who love history and stories of exploration on the high seas will devour this gripping tale.
Shipping is a pillar of global trade, with 90 per cent of the world's trade in goods and raw materials carried by ship. Despite the economic benefits this delivers, maritime operations can be dangerous, and when accidents occur the consequences are serious. Consequential outcomes from hazards at sea include serious injury, death, loss of cargo and destruction of the marine environment. Managing Maritime Safety will give you a thorough understanding of contemporary maritime safety and its management. It provides varying viewpoints on traditional safety topics in conjunction with critical discussions of the international safety management code and its application. The book also offers new perspectives on maritime safety such as ship and equipment design for safety and the relevance of safety management systems, in particular the application of the International Safety Management code to remote controlled or autonomous ships. The authors all work in the maritime industry, as practitioners, in education, research, government and classification. The combination of wide-ranging and extensive experience provides an unprecedented span of views with a strong connection to the real issues in the maritime domain. This book sets out to provide much needed consolidated knowledge for university level students on maritime safety management, incorporating theoretical, historical, research, operational and design perspectives.
Both Tromp-class frigates entered service in 1975/76. Their primary task was area air defence. They acted as flagships for the COMNLTG (Commander Netherlands Task Group). Because of their large radome (wich housed a 3D radar antenna) the ships had the nickname "Kojak" after the bald-headed actor in the famous action crime tv-series.
The rich history of the P&O Line began in the 1830s when steam power was still in its infancy, and this, coupled with longer voyages, meant that shipwrecks became inevitable - all part of the risk of running a pioneer shipping company at that time. Shipwrecks of the P&O Line explores these losses, starting with the inaugural mail service sailing of the wooden paddle steamer Don Juan, which ran aground in fog in 1837, and ending 120 years later with the cargo liner Shillong (2), which sank following a collision in the Red Sea in 1957. Sam Warwick and Mike Roussel include a detailed history of each vessel leading up to the time of its loss and meticulously investigate the events surrounding the wrecking of each vessel, with exclusive accounts from divers who have explored the wreck, along with striking underwater images. Complete with practical data for divers, this unique history offers a fresh analysis of maritime history, of interest to maritime history enthusiasts as well as the many who have taken up diving as a leisure sport.
While the story of Endeavour is widely known, Captain Cook sailed with eight ships, which began their lives as merchant vessels. This detailed illustrated history tells the story of these vessels and the people who sailed in them. In placing these ships and people in the personal, political, social, financial, scientific and religious contexts of their times, this book provides a comprehensive and readable account of the 'long eighteenth century'. Using contemporary sources, this gripping narrative fills a gap in Cook history and attempts to catch something of the exciting, violent, gossipy but largely untaught and unknown period through which these vessels and their people sailed literally and figuratively between the old world and the new.
Passed down in the oral tradition and sung traditionally as working songs, sea shanties tell the human stories of life at sea: hard graft, battling the elements, the loss of ships or pining for a lady on shore. Its pages decorated with hand-drawn or wood-cut illustrations from celebrated artist Jonny Hannah, Sailor Song addresses the current modern revival of sea shanties, and seeks to celebrate and to explore the historical, musical and social history of the traditional sea song through 40 beautiful, mournful, haunting and uplifting shanties. Acclaimed shanty devotee Gerry Smyth presents the background to each one alongside musical notation. The lyrics are elaborated with explanations of terminology, context including historical facts and accounts of life at sea, and the characters, both fictional and non-fictional, that appear in the songs from the great age of sail to the last days of square-rig. Where appropriate, a direct digital link is made to a shanty recording in the British Library Sound Archive.
When the British Prime Minister announced a new warship was to be christened HMS London in 2018 it revived a name that is covered not only in glory but also tinged with controversy. In this vividly told narrative we voyage in the company of those whose fates have been intertwined with Londons in peace, war and even during mutiny. For the ship's companies of fighting vessels named HMS London have witnessed the highs and lows of British naval history spanning centuries. The epic story includes: an ill-fated encounter between wooden wall battleships off Chesapeake in 1781 - whose result arguably lost Britain its American colonies; the hell of the Gallipoli landings in the First World War; the disastrous PQ17 convoy of the Second World War; a valiant foray into the teeth of communist Chinese fire during the 1940s Yangtze Incident; leading the British naval task group in Operation Desert Storm; sailing into the Arctic on a mission to end the Cold War at sea as the 1991 hard-liners' coup in Moscow collapsed. This new edition offers enhanced and new imagery in addition to other fresh material, including a young officer's part in the climactic events of the Second World War in East Asia. We also learn how the London of Oliver Cromwell and King Charles II is offering up treasures from the murky waters of the Thames. A new final chapter looks at the next HMS London, which will be a futuristic City Class (Type 26) submarine hunter. It also considers the missions the new London will face amid great power rivalry on the oceans that sees an increasingly volatile face-off between the West and Russia with China.
The sea realm has ever been mysterious: strange happenings upon it, an unfathomable abyss of 'The Great Unknown' below. Before the scrutiny of scientific Enlightenment and Age of Reason, in the eighteenth century, ghost ships and oceanic monsters were the stuff of superstition, myth and legend to explain the inexplicable, to enthral the imagination - and enliven the unimaginable. Narratives of phantom ships manned by ghostly (sometimes skeletal) crews, or damned like the Flying Dutchman to roam the seas forever; of sinister, sinuous sea serpents; and the lore of the terrible multi-tentacled kraken. Accounts inspired spirited controversy amongst believers and sceptics, in the awestruck thrill of such frightful enigmas.
This is the story of Rupert T. Gould (1890-1948), the polymath and
horologist. A remarkable man, Lt Cmdr Gould made important
contributions in an extraordinary range of subject areas throughout
his relatively short and dramatically troubled life. From antique
clocks to scientific mysteries, from typewriters to the first
systematic study of the Loch Ness Monster, Gould studied and
published on them all. With the title The Stargazer, Gould was an
early broadcaster on the BBC's Children's Hour when, with his
encyclopaedic knowledge, he became known as The Man Who Knew
Everything. Not surprisingly, he was also part of that elite group
on BBC radio who formed The Brains Trust, giving on-the-spot
answers to all manner of wide ranging and difficult questions. With
his wide learning and photographic memory, Gould awed a national
audience, becoming one of the era's radio celebrities.
This book provides a history of the South China Sea conflict and lays out the stakes for each of the bordering states and China's interaction with them - namely, Vietnam, the Philippines, Brunei, Malaysia, Taiwan, and Indonesia; it also examines the U.S. government's role in the region. China's Naval Operations in the South China Sea is highly topical; it examines the evolving perception of the People's Republic of China's (PRC) of the South China Sea (SCS), and Beijing's accompanying maritime strategy to claim the islands and waters, particularly in the context of the strategies of the neighbouring stake-holding nations. In addition to long-standing territorial disputes over the islands and waters of the SCS, China and the other littoral states - Vietnam, the Philippines, Brunei, Malaysia, Taiwan, and Indonesia - have growing and often mutually exclusive interests in the offshore energy reserves and fishing grounds. Many other countries outside of the region worry about the protection of sea lines of communication for military and commercial traffic, oil tankers in particular. These differences have been expressed in the increasing frequency and intensity of maritime incidents, involving both naval and civilian vessels, sometimes working in coordination against naval or civilian targets. Each chapter on the littoral states closely examines that state's territorial claims to the islands and waters of the SCS, its primary economic and military interests in these areas, its views on the sovereignty disputes over the entire SCS, its strategy to achieve its objectives, and its views on the U.S. involvement in any and all of these issues.
This two-volume set highlights the importance of Iberian shipbuilding in the centuries of the so-called first globalization (15th to 18th), in confluence with an unprecedented extension of ocean navigation and seafaring and a greater demand for natural resources (especially timber), mostly oak (Quercus spp.) and Pine (Pinus spp.). The chapters are framed in a multidisciplinary and interdisciplinary line of research that integrates history, Geographic Information Sciences, underwater archaeology, dendrochronology and wood provenance techniques. This line of research was developed during the ForSEAdiscovery project, which had a great impact in the academic and scientific world and brought together experts from Europe and America. The volumes deliver a state-of-the-art review of the latest lines of research related to Iberian maritime history and archaeology and their developing interdisciplinary interaction with dendroarchaeology. This synthesis combines an analysis of historical sources, the systematic study of wreck-remains and material culture related to Iberian seafaring from the 15th to the 18th centuries, and the application of earth sciences, including dendrochronology. The set can be used as a manual or work guide for experts and students, and will also be an interesting read for non-experts interested in the subject. Volume 1 focuses on the history and archaeology of seafaring and shipbuilding in the Iberian early modern world, complemented by case studies on timber trade and supply for shipbuilding, analysis of shipbuilding treatises, and the application of Geographic Information Systems and Databases (GIS) to the study of shipwrecks.
There were over 700 survivors of the Titanic disaster and their horrific experience has captivated readers and moviegoers for over 100 years. But what was it actually like for a woman to say goodbye to her husband? For a mother to leave her teenage sons? For the unlucky many who found themselves in the freezing Atlantic waters? Titanic Voices is the most comprehensive collection of Titanic survivors' accounts ever published and includes many unpublished and long-forgotten accounts, unabridged, together with an authoritative editorial commentary. It is also the first book to include substantial accounts from female survivors and those travelling third class.
Founded in 1825 by the 21-year-old George Thompson Jnr, the Aberdeen Line developed over 100 years into one of the best-respected shipping lines in Britain. Initially engaged in the UK coastal, Baltic, North American, South American, China and Antipodean trade routes, before settling to become the longest-serving line on the Australian trade via the Cape, the name of Thompson's Aberdeen was synonymous with the highest professional standards, with such jewels as the clipper Thermopylae and their first steamer, SS Aberdeen. The Aberdeen name navigated commercial takeovers by the Oceanic Steam Navigation Company, Shaw Savill and Albion, Lord Kylsant's Royal Mail Group and Furness Withy, before becoming all but forgotten when it finally furled its sails in 1957. Here Peter King seeks to bring this once prominent shipping line's history to light once more for the enjoyment of shipping enthusiasts and maritime historians everywhere.
'A vivid account of a forgotten chapter of British naval history.' Dan Snow, Historian, TV Presenter and Broadcaster The true story of one of the most notorious mutinies in naval history, which provided inspiration for Patrick O'Brian's Aubrey-Maturin and C.S. Forester's Hornblower novels. In 1797 the 32-gun Royal Navy frigate HMS Hermione was serving in the Caribbean, at the forefront of Britain's bitter sea war against Spain and Revolutionary France. Its commander, the sadistic and mercurial Captain Hugh Pigot ruled through terror, flogging his men mercilessly and pushing them beyond the limits of human endurance. On the night of 21 September 1797, past breaking point and drunk on stolen rum, the crew rebelled, slaughtering Pigot and nine of his officers in the bloodiest mutiny in the history of the Royal Navy. Handing the ship over to the Spanish, the crew fled, sparking a manhunt that would last a decade. Seeking to wipe clean this stain on its name, the Royal Navy pursued the traitorous mutineers relentlessly, hunting them across the globe, and, in 1801, seized the chance to recover its lost ship in one of the most daring raids of the Age of Fighting Sail. Anchored in a heavily fortified Venezuelan harbour, the Hermione - now known as the Santa Cecilia - was retaken in a bold night-time action, stolen out from under the Spanish guns. Back in British hands, the Hermione was renamed once more - its new identity a stark warning to would-be mutineers: Retribution. Drawing on letters, reports, ships' logs, and memoirs of the period, as well as previously unpublished Spanish sources, Angus Konstam intertwines extensive research with a fast-paced but balanced account to create a fascinating retelling of one of the most notorious events in the history of the Royal Navy, and its extraordinary, wide-ranging aftermath.
How a strategist's ideas were catastrophically ignored in 1914-but shaped Britain's success in the Second World War and beyond Leading historian Andrew Lambert shows how, as a lawyer, civilian, and Liberal, Julian Corbett (1854-1922) brought a new level of logic, advocacy, and intellectual precision to the development of strategy. Corbett skillfully integrated classical strategic theory, British history, and emerging trends in technology, geopolitics, and conflict to prepare the British state for war. He emphasized that strategy is a unique national construct, rather than a set of universal principles, and recognized the importance of domestic social reform and the evolving British Commonwealth. Corbett's concept of a maritime strategy, dominated by the control of global communications and economic war, survived the debacle of 1914-18, when Britain used the German "way of war" at unprecedented cost in lives and resources. It proved critical in the Second World War, shaping Churchill's conduct of the conflict from the Fall of France to D-Day. And as Lambert shows, Corbett's ideas continue to influence British thinking.
WITHOUT HENRY V'S NAVY, the Battle of Agincourt would never have happened. Henry's fleet played a major - if often unrecognised - part in enabling the king to come within reach of final victory in the Hundred Years War against France. Henry's navy was one of the most successful fleets deployed by England before the time of Elizabeth I. The royal fleet was transformed in Henry's short reign from a few dilapidated craft into a powerful weapon of war, with over thirty fighting vessels, up-to-date technology and four of the biggest ships in Europe. Drawing from extensive research into documentary, pictorial and archaeological sources, Henry V's Navy is about the men, ships and operations of Henry's sea war. Maritime historian Ian Friel explores everything from shipboard food to how crews and their ships sailed and fought, and takes an in-depth look at the royal ships. He also tells the dramatic and bloody story of the naval conflict, which at times came close to humiliating defeat for the English.
Great passenger ships that never were is a completely revised and updated version of Damned by Destiny (Teredo Books, 1982), a comprehensive account of the large passenger ships that, for one reason or another, never entered commercial service. Some never made it off the drawing board or out of the model shop, some met with disaster after launch and some were diverted to wartime service but didn't survive, never used for their original purpose. They were all the victims of circumstance, whether due to financial crises, timing or changing technology. Some of these liners and cruise vessels may have become the greatest passenger ships ever achieved. They would have surpassed the most famous, not only in speed and splendour but in size and appearance, besides setting trends that were subsequently adopted for ships that did enter service. With beautiful pictures and detailed diagrams this book is a true insight into what might have been.
For centuries before the arrival in Australia of Captain Cook and the so-called First Fleet in 1788, intrepid seafaring explorers had been searching, with varied results, for the fabled "Great Southland." In this enthralling history of early discovery, Graham Seal offers breathtaking tales of shipwrecks, perilous landings, and Aboriginal encounters with the more than three hundred Europeans who washed up on these distant shores long before the land was claimed by Cook for England. The author relates dramatic, previously untold legends of survival gleaned from the centuries of Dutch, Spanish, Portuguese, French, and Indonesian voyages to Australia, and debunks commonly held misconceptions about the earliest European settlements: ships of the Dutch East Indies Company were already active in the region by the early seventeenth century, and the Dutch, rather than the English, were probably the first European settlers on the continent.
The book provides the first, complete overview of the American merchant marine during World War I: the rapid expansion of trans-Atlantic shipping; a record of shipbuilding between 1914-1918, including the revival of sailing vessel construction and wood and concrete freighters; profiles of the companies that operated ships; a record of all losses at sea from enemy action; highlights of the experiences of mariners with U-boat commanders and crews, mines, and aircraft attacks; and the role of the Naval Overseas Transportation Service.
The Newport Medieval Ship is the most important late-medieval merchant vessel yet recovered. Built c.1450 in northern Spain, it foundered at Newport twenty years later while undergoing repairs. Since its discovery in 2002, further investigations have transformed historians' understanding of fifteenth-century ship technology. With plans in place to make the ship the centrepiece for a permanent exhibition in Newport, this volume interprets the vessel, to enable visitors, students and researchers to understand the ship and the world from which it came. The volume contains eleven chapters, written by leading maritime archaeologists and historians. Together, they consider its significance and locate the vessel within its commercial, political and social environment.
In the nineteenth century true stories of cannibal tribes massacring white traders (and vice versa) and missionaries fed the morbid appetites of Europeans, North Americans and colonials. Accounts of cannibalism committed by seafarers on their dead shipmates quickened the pulses of landfolk even more, and pricked their moral disquiet. Acts of desperate men committing unspeakable atrocities. The warring frenzy of cannibal headhunters and their gruesome feasting. Such was the stuff of real-life 'sixpenny romances', rich in human butchery and garnished with treachery and terror. The more atrocious the at rocities, the more exotic the locations; the more sensational the narratives, the greater was the thrall of these thrilling tales of the sea.
America's Anchor articulates the naval history of the Delaware River and Bay, spanning the three centuries from discovery to the end of the Second World War. Offering a narrative tale of ships, and the men from the Delaware Valley who sailed them, it weaves the story of shipbuilders, and marine infrastructure from a waterway that was a surprisingly active estuary of marine conflict. From Philadelphia to the Delaware Capes, the story of the nascent United States Navy emerges into full maturity from these shores as the nation's defender. The author provides a broad historical context as his canvas, upon which he limns a compelling narrative of naval growth and expansion in peace and war. His story is highlighted by selected quotes and personal thoughts of the colorful actors in his tale. From pirates to pilots, navigators to notable commanders, Wiggins' describes the arc of nautical history of the Delaware estuary for the first time, between the covers of one volume. He brings to life an under-appreciated history of a familiar place. This tale of the sea and its able seamen is illustrated with 88 historic images and supplemented by four appendices.
Women have a long history of keeping the lights burning, from tending ancient altar flames or bonfires to modern-day lighthouse keeping. Yet most of their stories are little-known. Guiding Lights includes true stories from around the world, chronicling the lives of the extraordinary women who mind the world's storm-battered towers. From Hannah Sutton and her partner Grant, the two caretakers living alone on Tasmania's wild Maatsuyker Island, to Karen Zacharuk, the keeper in charge of Cape Beale on Canada's Vancouver Island, where bears, cougars and wolves roam, the lives of lighthouse women are not for the faint of heart. Stunning photographs from throughout history accompany accounts of the dramatic torching of Puysegur Point, one of NZ's most inhospitable lighthouses; 'haunted' lighthouses in across the US and their tragic tales; lighthouse accidents and emergencies around the world; and two of the world's most legendary lighthouse women: Ida Lewis (US) and Grace Darling (UK), who risked their lives to save others. The book also explores our dual perception of lighthouses: are they comforting and romantic beacons symbolising hope and trust, or storm-lashed and forbidding towers with echoes of lonely, mad keepers? Whatever our perception, stories of women's courage and dedication in minding the lights - then and now - continue to capture our imagination and inspire.
Pirates of Barbary is an extraordinary record of the European
renegades and Islamic sea-rovers who terrorised the Mediterranean
and beyond throughout the seventeenth century. From the coast of
Southern Europe to Morocco and the Ottoman states of Algiers, Tunis
and Tripoli, Christian and Muslim seafarers met in bustling ports
to swap religions, to battle and to trade goods and slaves --
raiding as far as Iceland and New England in search of their human
currency. Studying the origins of these men, their culture and
practices -- from pirate etiquette to intimidation tactics --
Adrian Tinniswood expertly recreates the twilight world of the
corsairs in fascinating detail, and uncovers a truly remarkable
clash of civilisations. |
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