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Books > History > History of specific subjects > Maritime history
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.
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.
Elizabeth's Sea Dogs investigates the rise and fall of a unique
group of adventurers - men like Francis Drake, John Hawkins, Martin
Frobisher and Walter Raleigh. Seen by the English as heroes but by
the Spanish as pirates, they were expert seafarers and
controversial characters. This riveting new account reveals them
for what they were: extremely tough men in extremely hard times.
They sailed, fought, looted and whored their way across the globe;
in the process, they established a lasting British presence in the
Americas, defeated the Spanish Armada, and made Queen Elizabeth I
very wealthy, if seldom grateful. Author Hugh Bicheno sets the Sea
Dogs in historical context and reveals their lives and exploits
through diligent historical research incorporating contemporary
testimony. With additional appendices, colour plates, the author's
own maps and technical drawings, Elizabeth's Sea Dogs tells their
vivid, extraordinary story as it was lived, in the author's
trademark engaging style.
Lost to a German torpedo on 7 May 1915, Cunard's RMS Lusitania
captured the world's imagination when she entered service in 1907.
Not only was she the largest ship in the world, but she was also
revolutionary in design as well as being a record breaker.
Lusitania is now sadly remembered for her tragic destruction,
sinking in eighteen minutes with the loss of around 1,200 souls. In
this sumptuously illustrated book, historian Eric Sauder brings RMS
Lusitania to life once again. Filled with vivid, unseen photographs
and illustrations from Eric's extensive private collection, this
absorbing read will transport the reader back over 100 years to a
time when opulent Ships of State were the only way to cross the
Atlantic.
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
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.
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.
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.
On October 25, 1836, the sidewheel steamer Royal Tar caught fire in
Maine's Penobscot Bay. On board was a small circus menagerie
returning to Boston from a summer-long tour of the Canadian
Maritimes. Plagued by gale-force winds and rough seas, the usual
overnight trip from Saint John, New Brunswick, stretched out to
four days and, on the fourth day, disaster struck off the island of
Vinalhaven. Thirty-two people and all of the circus animals
perished in the tragedy. Mark Warner explores the events leading up
to that fateful day. Beginning with the construction of the Royal
Tar, he traces the vessel's service history, the menagerie's tour
of the Maritimes, the cause of the fire, and details of the rescue
operation.
FINANCIAL TIMES BEST HISTORY BOOKS OF 2022 For centuries, Ferdinand
Magellan has been celebrated as a hero: a noble adventurer who
circumnavigated the globe in an extraordinary feat of human
bravery; a paragon of daring and chivalry. Now historian Felipe
Fernandez-Armesto draws on extensive and meticulous research to
conduct a dazzling investigation into Magellan's life, his
character and his ill-fated voyage. He reveals that Magellan did
not attempt - much less accomplish - a journey around the globe,
and that in his own lifetime, the explorer was abhorred as a
traitor, reviled as a tyrant and dismissed as a failure.
Fernandez-Armesto probes the passions and tensions that drove
Magellan to adventure and drew him to disaster: the pride that
became arrogance, audacity that became recklessness, determination
that became ruthlessness, romanticism that became irresponsibility,
and superficial piety that became, in adversity, irrational
exaltation. And as the real Magellan emerges, so too do his true
ambitions, focused less on circumnavigating the world or cornering
the global spice market than on exploiting Filipino gold. Offering
up a stranger, darker and even more compelling narrative than the
fictional version that has been glorified for half a millennium,
Straits untangles the myths that made Magellan a hero.
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.
Provides a comprehensive overview of the activities of the British
navy in the Indian and Pacific Oceans from the earliest times to
the present. This book outlines the early voyages of the English
East India Company, its building of its own naval forces and its
conflicts with Indian states. It examines the opening up of the
Pacific Ocean, the wars with the French in the eighteenth and early
nineteenth centuries and the activities of the British navy in the
later nineteenth century, both off the coasts of China and Japan,
and also in the many other places to which the navy's very great
power extended. It goes on to consider the wars of the twentieth
century, Britain's withdrawal from east of Suez, and Britain's
continuing relative decline. Throughout, the book provides accounts
of battles and other actions, and relates the activities of the
British navy to the wider political situation and to the activities
of other European and Asian navies.
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.
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.
A fully updated fourth edition written by a team of specialists.
Enabling students to place early modern Europe within a global
context and to see how Europe interacted with the broader early
modern world through the exchange of ideas and goods. New chapters
on Environment and Food and Drink Cultures which provides students
and lecturers with a narrative history and new examples in these
fields at an introductory level. The companion website now includes
a primary source resource section with links and extracts from
primary source material for lecturers to use in their seminars and
students to use in their essays and an interactive map which pin
points the key information about early modern cities, battles and
trade routes, enabling students to engage with the early modern
period in a variety of ways. This fourth edition has been updated
to include further information for students on key early modern
terms, that they may not have come across before, and additional
coverage of topics such as Eastern Europe, the English Civil War,
the French Revolution and Jewish life. Ensuring students can obtain
a full introduction to early modern European history, supporting
their first year overview courses as well as more specialised
classes as they continue their studies.
The rich and dramatic story of our forty-ninth state is unfolded
through wonderful vintage photographs and the entertaining
historical narrative of well-known maritime author Jim Gibbs. More
than 250 photographs of Alaskan sailing vessels, ports,
lighthouses, and historical figures, along with an intriguing text,
guide the reader through the story of the original inhabitants and
the ensuing occupations by the Russians and Americans. Visit
lighthouses, tap into the oil business, and get caught up in the
excitement of the gold rush. Gibbs relates the epic stories of
Alaska, unusual shipwrecks, and a history of the cruise industry
and modern cargo transport. If you are interested in exploring (or
re-visiting) this unique and beautiful place, let this informative
and pictorial guide take you on a tour of the "Frozen North" from
your own armchair.
Bringing to bear the latest developments across various areas of
research and disciplines, this collection provides a broad
perspective on how Western Europe made sense of a complex,
multi-faceted, and by and large Sino-centered East and Southeast
Asia. The volume covers the transpacific period--after Magellan's
opening of the transpacific route to the Far East and before the
eventual dominance of the region by the British and the Dutch. In
contrast to the period of the Enlightenment, during which
Orientalist discourses arose, this initial period of encounters and
conquest is characterized by an enormous curiosity and a desire to
seize--not only materially but intellectually--the lands and
peoples of East Asia. The essays investigate European visions of
the Far East--particularly of China and Japan--and examine how and
why particular representations of Asians and their cultural
practices were constructed, revised, and adapted. Collectively, the
essays show that images of the Far East were filtered by worldviews
that ranged from being, on the one hand, universalistic and
relatively equitable towards cultures to the other extreme,
unilaterally Eurocentric.
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.
A comprehensive overview of the subject, demonstrating that the
maritime aspects of the civil wars were much more important than
has hitherto been acknowledged. NOMINATED FOR THE MILITARY HISTORY
MONTHLY BOOK OF THE YEAR AWARD! The civil wars in England, Scotland
and Ireland in the period 1638-1653 are usually viewed from the
perspective of land warfare. This book, on the other hand, presents
a comprehensive overview of the wars from a maritime perspective.
It considers the structure, organisation and manning of the
parliamentarian, royalist, and Irish confederate navies, discussing
how these changed overthe course of the wars. It also traces the
development of the wars at sea, showing that the initial opting for
parliament by seamen and officers in 1642 was a crucial
development, as was the mutiny and defection of part of the
parliamentarian navy in 1648. Moving beyond this it examines the
nature of maritime warfare, including coastal sieges, the securing
of major ports for parliament, the attempts by royalists to ship
arms and other supplies from continental Europe, commerce raiding,
and the transportation of armies and their supporters in the
invasions of Scotland and Ireland. Overall the book demonstrates
that the war at sea was an integral and important part of these
dramatic conflicts. RICHARD J. BLAKEMORE is a Lecturer in the
History of the Atlantic World at the University of Reading. ELAINE
MURPHY is a Lecturer in Maritime/Naval History at the University of
Plymouth and author of Ireland and the War at Sea, 1641-1653
(Boydell Press, 2012).
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