During the Age of Sail, black seamen could be found in many shipboard roles in the Royal Navy, such as gunners, deck-hands and 'top men', working at heights in the rigging. In the later Age of Steam, black seamen were more likely to be found on merchantmen below deck; as cooks, stewards and stokers. Nevertheless, the navy was possibly a unique institution in that black and white could work alongside each other more than in any other occupation. In this fascinating work, Dr. Ray Costello examines the work and experience of seamen of African descent in Britain's navy, from impressed slaves to free Africans, British West Indians, and British-born Black sailors. Seamen from the Caribbean and directly from Africa have contributed to both the British Royal Navy and Merchant Marine from at least the Tudor period and by the end of the period of the British Slave Trade at least three percent of all crewmen were black mariners. Black sailors signed off in British ports helped the steady growth of a black population. In spite of racial prejudice in port, relationships were forged between sailors of different races which frequently ignored expected norms when working and living together in the isolated world of the ship. Black seamen on British ships have served as by no means a peripheral force within the British Royal and Mercantile navies and were not only to be found working in both the foreground and background of naval engagements throughout their long history, but helping to ensure the supply of foodstuffs and the necessities of life to Britain. Their experiences span the gamut of sorrow and tragedy, heroism, victory and triumph.

An extraordinary account of one woman's single-minded campaign to restore a Victorian steamship to her former glory and make her an Andean attraction Here is a vivid account of Meriel Larken's incredible quest to restore the "Yavari" steamship against the odds--a ship that is now celebrating its 150 year anniversary in 2012. In 1862 the English-built "Yavari" was taken to bits and shipped to South America. In an epic logistical feat it was carried in thousands of pieces, by mule, up the Andes to Lake Titicaca, 12,500 feet above sea level, the world's highest navigable waterway. She was reconstructed and for more than a century plied her trade up and down the lake, but by 1985 she was a sad rotting hulk--until she was found by Larken, who led the quest to project to restore and preserve the ship. The oldest single screw iron passenger ship in the world, this nautical and engineering jewel is now a major Peruvian tourist attraction.

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

From the author of Killers of the Flower Moon, a page-turning story of shipwreck, survival, and savagery, culminating in a court martial that reveals a shocking truth. The powerful narrative reveals the deeper meaning of the events on The Wager, showing that it was not only the captain and crew who ended up on trial, but the very idea of empire.

On January 28, 1742, a ramshackle vessel of patched-together wood and cloth washed up on the coast of Brazil. Inside were thirty emaciated men, barely alive, and they had an extraordinary tale to tell. They were survivors of His Majesty’s Ship the Wager, a British vessel that had left England in 1740 on a secret mission during an imperial war with Spain. While the Wager had been chasing a Spanish treasure-filled galleon known as “the prize of all the oceans,” it had wrecked on a desolate island off the coast of Patagonia. The men, after being marooned for months and facing starvation, built the flimsy craft and sailed for more than a hundred days, traversing nearly 3,000 miles of storm-wracked seas. They were greeted as heroes.

But then ... six months later, another, even more decrepit craft landed on the coast of Chile. This boat contained just three castaways, and they told a very different story. The thirty sailors who landed in Brazil were not heroes – they were mutineers. The first group responded with countercharges of their own, of a tyrannical and murderous senior officer and his henchmen. It became clear that while stranded on the island the crew had fallen into anarchy, with warring factions fighting for dominion over the barren wilderness. As accusations of treachery and murder flew, the Admiralty convened a court martial to determine who was telling the truth. The stakes were life-and-death—for whomever the court found guilty could hang.

The Wager is a grand tale of human behavior at the extremes told by one of our greatest nonfiction writers. Grann’s recreation of the hidden world on a British warship rivals the work of Patrick O’Brian, his portrayal of the castaways’ desperate straits stands up to the classics of survival writing such as The Endurance, and his account of the court martial has the savvy of a Scott Turow thriller. As always with Grann’s work, the incredible twists of the narrative hold the reader spellbound.

Empires of the Sea brings together studies of maritime empires from the Bronze Age to the Eighteenth Century. The volume aims to establish maritime empires as a category for the (comparative) study of premodern empires, and from a partly 'non-western' perspective. The book includes contributions on Mycenaean sea power, Classical Athens, the ancient Thebans, Ptolemaic Egypt, The Genoese Empire, power networks of the Vikings, the medieval Danish Empire, the Baltic empire of Ancien Regime Sweden, the early modern Indian Ocean, the Melaka Empire, the (non-European aspects of the) Portuguese Empire and Dutch East India Company, and the Pirates of Caribbean.

By extending their voyages to all oceans from the 1760s onward, whaling vessels from North America and Europe spanned a novel net of hunting grounds, maritime routes, supply posts, and transport chains across the globe. For obtaining provisions, cutting firewood, recruiting additional men, and transshipping whale products, these highly mobile hunters regularly frequented coastal places and islands along their routes, which were largely determined by the migratory movements of their prey. American-style pelagic whaling thus constituted a significant, though often overlooked factor in connecting people and places between distant world regions during the long nineteenth century. Focusing on Africa, this book investigates side-effects resulting from stopovers by whalers for littoral societies on the economic, social, political, and cultural level. For this purpose it draws on eight local case studies, four from Africa's west coast and four from its east coast. In the overall picture, the book shows a broad range of effects and side-effects of different forms and strengths, which it figures as a "grey undercurrent" of global history.

This volume discusses the effects of industrialization on maritime trade, labour and communities in the Mediterranean and Black Sea from the 1850s to the 1920s. The 17 essays are based on new evidence from multiple type of primary sources on the transition from sail to steam navigation, written in a variety of languages, Italian, Spanish, French, Greek, Russian and Ottoman. Questions that arise in the book include the labour conditions, wages, career and retirement of seafarers, the socio-economic and spatial transformations of the maritime communities and the changes in the patterns of operation, ownership and management in the shipping industry with the advent of steam navigation. The book offers a comparative analysis of the above subjects across the Mediterranean, while also proposes unexplored themes in current scholarship like the history of navigation. Contributors are: Luca Lo Basso, Andrea Zappia, Leonardo Scavino, Daniel Muntane, Eduard Page Campos, Enric Garcia Domingo, Katerina Galani, Alkiviadis Kapokakis, Petros Kastrinakis, Kalliopi Vasilaki, Pavlos Fafalios, Georgios Samaritakis, Kostas Petrakis, Korina Doerr, Athina Kritsotaki, Anastasia Axaridou, and Martin Doerr.