This book looks to fill the 'blue hole' in Global History by studying the role of the oceans themselves in the creation, development, reproduction and adaptation of knowledge across the Atlantic world. It shows how globalisation and the growth of maritime knowledge served to reinforce one another, and demonstrates how and why maritime history should be put firmly at the heart of global history. Exploring the dynamics of globalisation, knowledge-making and European expansion, Global Ocean of Knowledge takes a transnational approach and transgresses the traditional border between the early modern and modern periods. It focuses on three main periodisations, which correspond with major transformations in the globalisation of the Atlantic World, and analyses how and to what extent globalisation forces from above and from below influenced the development and exchange of knowledge. Davids distinguishes three forms of globalising forces 'from above'; imperial, commercial and religious, alongside self-organisation, the globalising force 'from below'. Exploring how globalisation advanced and its relationship with knowledge changed over time, this book bridges global, maritime, intellectual and economic history to reflect on the role of the oceans in making the world a more connected place.

Originally named Juan Fernandez, the island of Robinson Crusoe in the South Pacific was the inspiration for Defoe's classic novel about the adventures of a shipwrecked sailor. Yet the complex story of Britain's relationship with this distant, tiny island is more surprising, more colourful and considerably darker. Drawing on voyage accounts, journal entries, maps and illustrations, acclaimed historian Andrew Lambert brings to life the voices of the visiting sailors, scientists, writers and artists, from the early encounters of the 1500s and the perilous journeys of the eighteenth-century explorers, to the naval conflicts of the First World War and the environmental concerns of more recent years. Crusoe's Island explores why we are still not willing to give up on the specks of land at the far ends of the earth.

Belfast has a long and proud shipbuilding heritage, this industry holding a strong place in Belfast's identity and popular culture. There were three main shipbuilders, Harland & Wolff, Workman Clark and the little-known McIllwain & Co., all of whom had fascinating and often turbulent histories. Despite this, little is known about the vessels they produced, beyond the world-famous story of Titanic. In this impeccably researched book, Dr John Lynch endeavours to change this, revealing the fascinating stories of the many ships to be built and launched from Belfast over 140 years, from the late 1850s to the twenty-first century. Including an alphabetical ship index, building lists, details on vessel name changes and many illustrations of the ships, this book also details the yards themselves and key characters in shaping their journeys from hey-day to decline.

When Titanic set sail in 1912, she was the largest, most luxurious and most technologically advanced man-made moving object in the world. Built by the great industrial communities that made Britain the pre-eminent superpower of the age, the famous ocean liner signalled the high-water mark of our nation's manufacturing industry. A must-read for any Titanic enthusiast, this fascinating book tells the untold stories of the men and women who made the 'ship of dreams' a reality: the fearless riveters who risked deafness from hammering millions of rivets that held together the fortress-like steel hull the engineers charged with the Herculean task of fitting engines to power the massive ship across the Atlantic at a speed of 23 knots the electricians who installed state-of-the-art communications systems and enormous steam-driven generators, each capable of powering the equivalent of 400 modern homes the highly skilled carpenters, cabinet-makers and artists who laboured over every last detail of the opulent staterooms. Titanic, of course, was destined to sink on her maiden voyage, but the achievement of the thousands of people who built and fitted out this astonishing ship lives on.

It was an age of evolution, when size and speed were almost the ultimate considerations. Bigger was said to be better, and ship owners were not exempted from the prevailing mood, while the German four-stackers of 1897-06 and then Cunard's brilliant "Mauretania" & "Lusitania" of 1907 led the way to larger and grander liners. White Star Line countered by 1911 with the "Olympic," her sister "Titanic," and a near-sister, the "Britannic." The French added the "France" while Cunard took delivery of the beloved" Aquitania." But the Germans won out--they produced the 52,000-ton "Imperator" and a near-sister, the "Vaterland," the last word in shipbuilding and engineering prior to World War I. They and their sister, the "Bismarck," remained the biggest ships in the world until 1935. But other passenger ships appear in this decade--other Atlantic liners, but also ships serving on more diverse routes: Union Castle to Africa, P&O to India and beyond, the Empress liners on the trans-Pacific run. We look at a grand age of maritime creation, ocean-going superlative, but also sad destruction in the dark days of the First War. It was, in all ways, a fascinating period.

With previously unpublished research and family photographs, this book by Hichens' granddaughter sets the record straight about the Titanic quartermaster who steered into an iceberg and kept control of a lifeboat Robert Hichens has gone down in history as the man who was given the famous order to steer the Titanic away from the iceberg and failed. A key witness at both U.S. and British Inquiries, he returned to a livelihood where fellow crewmen considered him jinxed. But Robert had a long career and was a hardworking, ambitious seaman. A fisherman at 19, he quickly became a junior officer in the merchant navy. In World War II he was part of a cargo ship convoy on route to Africa where his ship dodged mines, U-boats and enemy aircraft. To Robert, being at sea was everything but the dark memories of the Titanic were never far away and in 1933 a failed murder attempt after a bitter feud nearly cost Robert his life. Here Robert's great-granddaughter Sally Nilsson seeks to set the record straight and reveal the true character of the man her family knew. This is one man's story of survival, betrayal and determination.

A bulwark against invasion, a conduit for exchange and a challenge to be conquered, the English Channel has always been many things to many people. Today it's the busiest shipping lane in the world and hosts more than 30 million passenger crossings every year but this sliver of choppy brine, just 21 miles wide at its narrowest point, represents much more than a conductor of goods and people. Criss-crossing the Channel - not to mention regularly throwing himself into it for a bracing swim - Charlie Connelly collects its stories and brings them vividly to life, from tailing Oscar Wilde's shadow through the dark streets of Dieppe to unearthing Britain's first beauty pageant at the end of Folkestone pier (it was won by a bloke called Wally). We learn that Louis Bleriot was actually a terrible pilot, the tragic fate of the first successful Channel swimmer, and that if a man with a buttered head and pigs' bladders attached to his trousers hadn't fought off an attack by dogfish we might never have had a Channel Tunnel. Here is a cast of extraordinary characters - geniuses, cheats, dreamers, charlatans, visionaries, eccentrics and at least one pair of naked, cuddling balloonists - whose stories are all united by the English Channel to ensure the sea that makes us an island will never be the same again.

The lifeboats of Valentia have been in service since 1946, when the volunteer crew were summoned to action by the firing of maroon flares. Dick Robinson has been associated with the lifeboat station for almost 60 of those years, firstly as a child watching the flares, then as a serving crewmember, and finally as a maritime historian. In this detailed history, he captures the spirit of the station, together with the tragedies and sacrifices that make up its history. "Valentia Lifeboats: A History," has been compiled using the first-hand accounts, original and rare images, and detailed records of the station. It is a fitting tribute to the people who have served here, and will be a record of the station for many years to come.

"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.

This book tells the story of the North Norfolk fishing industry within living memory, compiled using numerous interviews with the fishermen themselves as well as rare photographs. With Cromer as its center point, long famous for its crabs, the book reveals the fishing practices across the villages and towns between Wells and south-east Norfolk. Here fishing has been characteristically traditional and markedly different from the industrial-scale industry to operate from the west. The boats, fishing gear, and techniques are all described, often in the fishermens' own words, providing an important record of the fishing practices lost in recent years. It has been written at a time when new designs of boats and fishing gear are changing the traditional face of the industry, and fishermens' sons are turning away from the sea. This is a portrait of a profession which has helped define the character of the Norfolk coast.

The perfect accompaniment to the collection of fourteen warship figureheads displayed in the atrium of The Box at Plymouth, this book introduces each of the figureheads, giving details of its design, the ship for which it was carved and the actions it witnessed when serving in the Royal Navy. To put these descriptions into perspective, early chapters tell the story of the development of warship figureheads over the centuries, the evolution of the figurehead collection at Devonport and the work of the figurehead carvers of Plymouth. As most of the figureheads on display come from the Devonport collection, the Directory at the end of the book provides a summary of all the figureheads that have appeared at some time in the collection and their fate.

Here the late Raphael Patai (1910-1996) recreates the fascinating world of Jewish seafaring from Noah's voyage through the Diaspora of late antiquity. In a work of pioneering scholarship, Patai weaves together Biblical stories, Talmudic lore, and Midrash literature to bring alive the world of these ancient mariners. As he did in his highly acclaimed book "The Jewish Alchemists," Patai explores a subject that has never before been investigated by scholars. Based on nearly sixty years of research, beginning with study he undertook for his doctoral dissertation, "The Children of Noah" is literally Patai's first book and his last. It is a work of unsurpassed scholarship, but it is accessible to general readers as well as scholars.

An abundance of evidence demonstrates the importance of the sea in the lives of Jews throughout early recorded history. Jews built ships, sailed them, fought wars in them, battled storms in them, and lost their lives to the sea. Patai begins with the story of the deluge that is found in Genesis and profiles Noah, the father of all shipbuilders and seafarers. The sea, according to Patai's interpretation, can be seen as an image of the manifestation of God's power, and he reflects on its role in legends and tales of early times. The practical importance of the sea also led to the development of practical institutions, and Patai shows how Jewish seafaring had its own culture and how it influenced the cultures of Mediterranean life as well. Of course, Jewish sailors were subject to the same rabbinical laws as Jews who never set sail, and Patai describes how they went to extreme lengths to remain in adherence, even getting special emendations of laws to allow them to tie knots and adjust rigging on the Sabbath.

"The Children of Noah" is a capstone to an extraordinary career. Patai was both a careful scholar and a gifted storyteller, and this work is at once a vivid history of a neglected aspect of Jewish culture and a treasure trove of sources for further study. It is a stimulating and delightful book.

Jean Barbot, who served as a commercial agent on French slave-trading voyages to West Africa in 1678-9 and 1681-2, in 1683 began an account of the Guinea coast, based partly on his voyage journals (only one of which is extant) and partly on previous printed sources. The work was interrupted by his flight to England, as a Huguenot refugee, in 1685, and not finished until 1688. When Barbot found that his lengthy French account could not be published, he rewrote it in English, enlarging it even further, and then continually revising it up to his death in 1712. The manuscript was eventually published in 1732. Barbot's book had considerable influence on later European attitudes to Black Africa and the Atlantic slave trade and in modern writings on both subjects is frequently cited as evidence. The French account serves as the base for the present edition and is presented in English translation but additional material in the later English version is inserted. The edition concentrates on Barbot's original information. He copied much from earlier sources - this derived material is omitted but is identified in the notes. The original material, mainly on Senegal, Sierra Leone, River Sess, Gold Coast and the Calabars, is extensively annotated, not least with comparative references to other sources. Apart from its narrative interest, the edition thus provides a starting point for the critical assessment of a range of early sources on Guinea. The edition opens with an introductory essay discussing Barbot's life and career and analysing his sources. Barbot provided a large number of his own drawings of topographical and ethnographical features, in particular drawings of almost all of the European forts in Guinea. Many of these illustrations are reproduced. This volume covers the coast from the River Volta to Cape Lopez. The main pagination of this and the previous volume (2nd series 175) series is continuous. This is a new print-on-demand hardback edition of the volume first published in 1991.

This edited collection re-examines the relationship between art and the sea, reflecting growing interest in the intersections between art and maritime history. Artists have always been fascinated by and drawn to the sea and this book considers some of the themes and approaches in art that have evolved as a result of this captivation. The chapters consider how an examination of art can provide new insights into existing knowledge of port and maritime history, and are representative of a 'cultural turn' in port and maritime studies, which is becoming increasingly visible. In Art and the Sea, multiple perspectives are offered as a result of the contributors' individual positions and methodologies: some museological, others art historical or maritime-historical. Each chapter proposes a new way of building upon available interpretations of port and maritime history: whether this be to reject, support or reconsider existing knowledge. The book as a whole is a timely addition, therefore, to the developing body of revisionist texts in port and maritime history. The interdisciplinary nature of the volume relates to a current trend for interdisciplinarity in art history and will appeal to those with an interest in art history, geography, sociology, history and transport / maritime studies.