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Books > History > History of specific subjects > Maritime history
Taken for granted as the natural order of things, peace at sea is
in fact an immense and recent achievement -- but also an enormous
strategic challenge if it is to be maintained in the future. In
Maritime Strategy and Global Order, an international roster of top
scholars offers historical perspectives and contemporary analysis
to explore the role of naval power and maritime trade in creating
the international system. The book begins in the early days of the
industrial revolution with the foundational role of maritime
strategy in building the British Empire. It continues into the era
of naval disorder surrounding the two world wars, through the
passing of the Pax Britannica and the rise of the Pax Americana,
and then examines present-day regional security in hot spots like
the South China Sea and Arctic Ocean. Additional chapters engage
with important related topics such as maritime law, resource
competition, warship evolution since the end of the Cold War, and
naval intelligence. A first-of-its-kind collection, Maritime
Strategy and Global Order offers scholars, practitioners, students,
and others with an interest in maritime history and strategic
issues an absorbing long view of the role of the sea in creating
the world we know.
Dr Wiswall examines the development of jurisdiction and practice in
the field of Admiralty Law in England, with American comparisons,
during the nineteenth and twentieth centuries; the work is largely
organized around the Court of Admiralty from 1798 onwards. The
judgeships of Lord Stowell, Dr Lushington, Sir Robert Phillimore
and Sir Francis Jeune, in England, are considered in some detail,
and also those of Mr Justice Story, Judge Ashur Ware and Judge
Addison Brown in the United States. One chapter is devoted to an
examination of the dissolution of Doctors' Commons (the unique body
of English civil lawyers). Development through case law, statutes
and rules is the technical side of this study - an exposition not
so much of the development of legal principles themselves as of
their application. 'The last chapter turns to a study of the
evolution of the substantive law regarding personal liability in
Admiralty actions in rem, illustrating the divergence between the
English and American law, and the effect upon and repercussions in
international maritime law.
The military operations of Scandinavian societies in the Viking Age
depended on their ships. Different types of ships were used in
order to transport troops and war supplies. Some ships were
designed to conduct the speedy transport of large numbers of
troops, while others were specialised cargo vessels used in
military operations as carriers of supplies and sometimes troops as
well. This book examines the building and use of ships for warfare
in 11th century Denmark. The subjects are addressed through
detailed analyses of aspects such as resources, organisational
structures and naval warfare. The outcomes are a more informed
understanding of 11th century Scandinavian military organisation,
shipbuilding and resource management.
This is the first full work since Hasebroek's Trade and Politics in
the Ancient World to deal directly with the place of maritime
traders in ancient Greece. Its main assumption is that traders'
juridical, economic, political and unofficial standing can only be
viewed correctly through the lens of the polis framework. It argues
that those engaging in inter-regional trade with classical Athens
were mainly poor and foreign (hence politically inert at Athens).
Moreover, Athens, as well as other classical Greek poleis, resorted
to limited measures, well short of war or other modes of economic
imperialism, to attract them. However, at least in the minds of
individual Athenians considerations of traders' indispensability to
Athens displaced what otherwise would have been low estimations of
their social status.
An extraordinary story of survival and alliance during World War
II: the icy journey of four Allied ships crossing the Arctic to
deliver much needed supplies to the Soviet war effort. On the
fourth of July, 1942, four Allied ships traversing the Arctic split
from their decimated convoy to head further north into the ice
field of the North Pole. They were seeking safety from Nazi bombers
and U-boats in the perilous white maze of ice floes, growlers, and
giant bergs. Despite the many risks of their chosen route, the four
vessels had a better chance of reaching their destination than the
rest of the remains of convoy PQ-17. The convoy had started as a
fleet of thirty-five cargo ships carrying $1 billion worth of war
supplies to the Soviet port of Archangel--the only help Roosevelt
and Churchill had extended to Joseph Stalin to maintain their
fragile alliance against Germany. At the most dangerous point of
the voyage, the ships had received a startling order to scatter and
had quickly become easy prey for the Nazis. The crews of the four
ships focused on their mission. U.S. Navy Ensign Howard Carraway,
aboard the SS Troubadour, was a farm boy from South Carolina and
one of the many Americans for whom the convoy was a first taste of
war; from the Royal Navy Reserve, Lt. Leo Gradwell was given
command of the HMT Ayrshire, a British fishing trawler that had
been converted into an antisubmarine vessel. The twenty-four-hour
Arctic daylight in midsummer gave them no respite from bombers or
submarines, and they all feared the giant German battleship
Tirpitz, nicknamed the "Big Bad Wolf." Icebergs were as dangerous
as Nazis as the remnants of convoy PQ-17 tried to slip through the
Arctic to deliver their cargo in one of the most dramatic escapes
of World War II. At Archangel they found a traumatized, starving
city, and a disturbing preview of the Cold War ahead.
The growth of China's maritime prowess has been a key facet marking
the ascendency of its comprehensive national power. A fact amply
indicated both by the articulation of the Chinese leadership and
empirical evidences, it flows from Beijing's realisation of the
growing salience of the oceanic realm and the attendant imperative
of being strong at sea for China to attain the status of a global
power. In recent years, the scale and speed with which, the
erstwhile continental power has accreted all facets of its maritime
capacity- both civilian and military - has surpassed the best
practitioners of the 'maritime trade-craft', worldwide. In this
book titled 'Maritime Power Building: New 'Mantra for China's
Rise', 'Mantra' is an Indian word denoting a sacred utterance,
believed to have spiritual power. The book is a collective
endeavour of India's National Maritime Foundation (NMF) and the
U.S. Centre of Naval Analysis (CNA). It seeks to collate the
academic efforts and perspectives of the two premier maritime
think-tanks located on the opposite sides of the globe to examine
and extrapolate China's approach to maritime power building. A key
facet addressed is the modernisation of the PLA Navy, which is the
final arbiter and preserver of China's maritime and overseas
interests in the extended Indo-Pacific region. The book is aimed at
facilitating an understanding of the opportunities and challenges
of China's rise as a maritime power for the region in particular,
and for the world at large.
Despite the vast literature on the transatlantic slave trade, the
role of sailors aboard slave ships has remained unexplored. This
book fills that gap by examining every aspect of their working
lives, from their reasons for signing on a slaving vessel, to their
experiences in the Caribbean and the American South after their
human cargoes had been sold. It explores how they interacted with
men and women of African origin at their ports of call, from the
Africans they traded with, to the free black seamen who were their
crewmates, to the slaves and ex-slaves they mingled with in the
port cities of the Americas. Most importantly, it questions their
interactions with the captive Africans they were transporting
during the dread middle passage, arguing that their work
encompassed the commoditisation of these people ready for sale.
Captain Robin Hutchison was one of the longest serving and most
experienced Masters to serve on the Clyde. In this book, he uses
his experience, wit and eye for detail to tell the story of his
favourite ships and the people he sailed with.
Entering service in 1938, the Nieuw Amsterdam was the Holland
America Line flagship until the construction of the Rotterdam in
the late 1950s. Her prewar life was short and she was used as a
troopship during the Second World War, carrying many thousands of
Allied troops to all corners of the world. Of 36,000 tons, she was
the largest vessel built in Rotterdam and was launched by Queen
Wilhelmina in April 1937. A perennial favourite of the Dutch and
their finest Ship of State, Nieuw Amsterdam remained in Holland
America Line service until 1974, the last ship to retain the
Holland America Line's familiar green, yellow and white funnels.
Despite boiler problems in 1967, she was refitted with US
Navy-surplus boilers and sailed on, cruising, until withdrawn from
service in 1974. Sailing to the breakers, the art deco 'Darling of
the Dutch', as she was affectionately known, was broken up. Today,
she still has a following, from those who sailed on her but also
from those who have grown to appreciate the importance of the Nieuw
Amsterdam in terms of ocean liner design.
Concentrates on the Bute West, Bute East and Roath Docks, from
their beginnings in the 1840s, through the boom years of the 1950s
and '60s to the period of redevelopment and modernisation. This
book includes 300 photographs and maps.
Oxford Textual Perspectives is a series of informative and
provocative studies focused upon literary texts (conceived of in
the broadest sense of that term) and the technologies, cultures,
and communities that produce, inform, and receive them. It provides
fresh interpretations of fundamental works and of the vital and
challenging issues emerging in English literary studies. By
engaging with the materiality of the literary text, its production,
and reception history, and frequently testing and exploring the
boundaries of the notion of text itself, the volumes in the series
question familiar frameworks and provide innovative interpretations
of both canonical and less well-known works. The Aesthetics of
Island Space discusses islands as central figures in the modern
experience of space. It examines the spatial poetics of islands in
literary texts, from Shakespeare's The Tempest to Ghosh's The
Hungry Tide, in the journals of explorers and scientists such as
James Cook and Charles Darwin, and in Hollywood cinema. It traces
the ways in which literary and cinematic islands have functioned as
malleable spatial figures that offer vivid perceptual experiences
as well as a geopoetic oscillation between the material energies of
words and images and the energies of the physical world. The
chapters focus on America's island gateways (Roanoke and Ellis
Island), visions of tropical islands (Tahiti and imagined South Sea
islands), the islands of the US-Canadian border region in the
Pacific Northwest, and the imaginative appeal of mutable islands.
It argues that modern voyages of discovery posed considerable
perceptual and cognitive challenges to the experience of space, and
that these challenges were negotiated in complex and contradictory
ways via poetic engagement with islands. Discussions of island
narratives in postcolonial theory have broadened understanding of
how islands have been imagined as geometrical abstractions, bounded
spaces easily subjected to the colonial gaze. There is, however, a
second story of islands in the Western imagination which runs
parallel to this colonial story. In this alternative account, the
modern experience of islands in the age of discovery went hand in
hand with a disintegration of received models of understanding
global space. Drawing on and rethinking (post-)phenomenological,
geocritical, and geopoetic theories, The Aesthetics of Island Space
argues that the modern experience of islands as mobile and shifting
territories implied a dispersal, fragmentation, and diversification
of spatial experience, and it explores how this disruption is
registered and negotiated by both non-fictional and fictional
responses.
This analysis of a crucial transformation in the history of world trade reveals how London and its surroundings grew during the eighteenth century to become the first true entrepot. The city developed a new kind of commercial structure sharply distinct from that of Holland and Amsterdam during the seventeenth century.
This book places the marine insurance business of Amsterdam in the wider context of the political economy of Europe during the second half of the eighteenth century. The analysis is based on the simultaneous quotations of premiums for the twenty-two groups of destinations which formed a major part of the commerical matrix of the Netherlands. It considers the operation of the market at two levels. On the one hand, the provision of insurance responded to risk uncertainties in the market: in the 1760s and 1770s, Amsterdam experienced three serious unheavals, in the form of the financial crises of 1763 and 1772–73 and the hostilities leading to American independence and the Fourth Anglo-Dutch War. On the other hand, underwriters accepted risks in situations of structural uncertainty. The book is fully illustrated with graphs and maps and uses a wide range of original documents drawn from archives and libraries in Europe. An appendix provides the basic data of premiums quoted in the price-lists of the market.
This book is an historical study of piracy in the ancient Greek and Roman world. It examines the origins and growth of piracy, the impact of piracy on trade, and the relationship between warfare and piracy, and evaluates attempts to suppress piracy by the states and rulers of the ancient world. A major innovation is the author's discussion of the way that pirates and piracy are portrayed in major works of classical literature, including Homer, Cicero and the ancient novels.
A riveting history and maritime adventure about priceless
masterpieces originally destined for Catherine the Great. On
October 1771, a merchant ship out of Amsterdam, Vrouw Maria,
crashed off the stormy Finnish coast, taking her historic cargo to
the depths of the Baltic Sea. The vessel was delivering a dozen
Dutch masterpiece paintings to Europe's most voracious collector:
Catherine the Great, Empress of Russia. Among the lost treasures
was The Nursery, an oak-paneled triptych by Leiden fine painter
Gerrit Dou, Rembrandt's most brilliant student and Holland's first
international superstar artist. Dou's triptych was long the most
beloved and most coveted painting of the Dutch Golden Age, and its
loss in the shipwreck was mourned throughout the art world. Vrouw
Maria, meanwhile, became a maritime legend, confounding would-be
salvagers for more than two hundred years. In July 1999, a daring
Finnish wreck hunter found Vrouw Maria, upright on the sea floor
and perfectly preserved. The Tsarina's Lost Treasure masterfully
recounts the fascinating tale of Vrouw Maria-her loss and
discovery-weaving together the rise and fall of the artist whose
priceless masterpiece was the jewel of the wreckage. Gerald Easter
and Mara Vorhees bring to vivid life the personalities that drove
(and are still driving) this compelling tale, evoking Robert
Massie's depiction of Russian high politics and culture, Simon
Schama's insights into Dutch Golden Age art and art history, Gary
Kinder's spirit of, danger and adventure on the beguiling
Archipelago Sea.
Stanley Lane-Pool - grand-nephew of the Arabic scholar, Edward Lane
- was a professor of Arabic at Trinity College, Dublin from 1898 to
1904. His books included several works on Oriental history. The
Barbary Corsairs recounts how the expatriation of the Spanish Moors
at the end of the fifteenth century led to their taking vengeance
from their new settlements in North Africa and elevating the skills
of piracy to a fine art. The Barbary Cost had long been a haunt of
pirates for its narrow creeks and natural harbours offered shelter
to their boats of shallow draught while denying access to larger
vessels. Despite commercial treaties between African and European
states, piracy was carried on throughout the Middle Ages, chiefly
by privateers from Chrisitan states whose rulers were powerless to
stop them.It was to this wild and notorious coast the Barbarossa
and his brother came in 1504 from the island of Lesbos. There
follows an account of their exploits and those of their successors
which kept 'all the nations of Europe in perpetual alarm for three
centuries'. The subsequent skirmishes drew heads of state and
religious leaders alike into the conflict. Although the failure to
besiege the Knights of Malta and the defeat at the Battle of
Lepanto marked the end of the age of the great Corsairs, piracy
continued on a less spectacular scale for a further two hundred
years and more, until the last Corsairs were driven from the
Barbary Coast by the events of the nineteenth century.
Generations of readers have enjoyed the adventures of Jim Hawkins,
the young protagonist and narrator in Robert Louis Stevenson s
Treasure Island, but little is known of the real Jim Hawkins and
the thousands of poor boys who went to sea in the eighteenth
century to man the ships of the Royal Navy. This groundbreaking new
work is a study of the origins, life and culture of the boys of the
Georgian navy, not of the upper-class children training to become
officers, but of the orphaned, delinquent or just plain adventurous
youths whose prospects on land were bleak and miserable. Many had
no adult at all taking care of them; others were failed
apprentices; many were troublesome youths for whom communities
could not provide so that the Navy represented a form of floating
workhouse . Some, with restless and roving minds, like Defoe s
Robinson Crusoe, saw deep sea life as one of adventure,
interspersed with raucous periods ashore drinking, singing and
womanising. The author explains how they were recruited; describes
the distinctive subculture of the young sailor the dress, hair,
tattoos and language and their life and training as servants of
captains and officers. More than 5,000 boys were recruited during
the Seven Years War alone and without them the Royal Navy could not
have fought its wars. This is a fascinating tribute to a forgotten
band of sailors.
Malta and Gozo s geographical location in the centre of the
Mediterranean Sea has, since ancient times, led to numerous ships
passing through the islands waters. Several records of this
maritime activity exist in different archives and other evidence
can be deduced from the seabed. Despite this, the maritime
archaeology of our islands has remained largely unexplored. This
book has been produced to address just a small part of this lacuna.
By looking at the history of underwater archaeology in Malta and
providing an overview of some of the most important finds from the
seabed around the archipelago readers will be able to familiarize
themselves with the fascinating world of our submerged cultural
heritage. In order to portray the full story it was necessary to
start at the beginning of underwater exploration in Malta. The
authors had the opportunity to meet and interview a number of
pioneers who took up scuba diving in the late 1950s and early
1960s. We are indebted to them for the invaluable information that
they passed on as well as for the archival material they shares.
Other sources used fo this research came from the stores and
archives of the Superintendence of Cultural heritage and Heritage
Malta. Both these institutions have done a professional job keeping
up to date with all material recovered from an underwater context.
This book should be of interest to divers, students, researchers as
well as the general public with the hope to increase awareness and
passion towards the submerged cultural heritage of the Maltese
islands.
As the fall of France took place, almost the entire coastline of
Western Europe was in German hands. Clandestine sea transport
operations provided lines of vital intelligence for wartime
Britain. These "secret flotillas" landed and picked up agents in
and from France, and ferried Allied evaders and escapees. This
activity was crucial to the SIS (Secret Intelligence Service) and
the SOE (Special Operations Executive). This authoritative
publication by the official historian, the late Sir Brooks
Richards, vividly describes and analyses the clandestine naval
operations that took place during WWII. The account has been made
possible through Sir Brooks' access to closed government archives,
combined with his own wartime experiences and the recollections of
many of those involved. First published in 1996, the original
edition included descriptions of naval operations off French North
Africa. The history has now been amended and expanded by Sir Brooks
and is now published in two volumes. This first volume concentrates
on the sea lines to Brittany. This authoritative publication by the
official historian, the late Sir Brooks Richards, vividly describes
and analyses the clandestine naval operations that took place
during World War Two.
This book is an historical study of piracy in the ancient Greek and Roman world. It examines the origins and growth of piracy, the impact of piracy on trade, and the relationship between warfare and piracy, and evaluates attempts to suppress piracy by the states and rulers of the ancient world. A major innovation is the author's discussion of the way that pirates and piracy are portrayed in major works of classical literature, including Homer, Cicero and the ancient novels.
Long before the rise of New World slavery, West Africans were adept
swimmers, divers, canoe makers, and canoeists. They lived along
riverbanks, near lakes, or close to the ocean. In those waterways,
they became proficient in diverse maritime skills, while
incorporating water and aquatics into spiritual understandings of
the world. Transported to the Americas, slaves carried with them
these West African skills and cultural values. Indeed, according to
Kevin Dawson's examination of water culture in the African
diaspora, the aquatic abilities of people of African descent often
surpassed those of Europeans and their descendants from the age of
discovery until well into the nineteenth century. As Dawson argues,
histories of slavery have largely chronicled the fields of the New
World, whether tobacco, sugar, indigo, rice, or cotton. However,
most plantations were located near waterways to facilitate the
transportation of goods to market, and large numbers of
agricultural slaves had ready access to water in which to sustain
their abilities and interests. Swimming and canoeing provided
respite from the monotony of agricultural bondage and brief moments
of bodily privacy. In some instances, enslaved laborers exchanged
their aquatic expertise for unique privileges, including wages,
opportunities to work free of direct white supervision, and even in
rare circumstances, freedom. Dawson builds his analysis around a
discussion of African traditions and the ways in which similar
traditions-swimming, diving, boat making, even surfing-emerged
within African diasporic communities. Undercurrents of Power not
only chronicles the experiences of enslaved maritime workers, but
also traverses the waters of the Atlantic repeatedly to trace and
untangle cultural and social traditions.
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