An examination of Roman naval development, drawing upon archaeological evidence, documentary accounts and visual representation. The Roman Imperial Navy was the most powerful maritime force ever to have existed, prior to the European naval development of relatively recent centuries. It was able to deploy huge fleets and dominate the seas around western Europe, north Africa, and the Middle East, as well as the great rivers that formed a large part of the eastern boundary of the Roman world. It secured the trade routes and maintained the communications that allowed the Roman Empire toexist. It brought previously untouchable and unreachable enemies to battle and enabled the expansion of Imperial power into areas thought hitherto inaccessible. At the height of its power the Roman Navy employed tens of thousandsof sailors, marines and craftsmen, who manned and maintained a fleet of warships far larger than anything in existence today. And yet these warships, the very tools that allowed the Roman Navy to dominate the seas, have remainedlargely unstudied. Drawing upon archaeological evidence, documentary accounts and visual representations, the book charts the development and evolution of the Roman warship over eight centuries of naval activity, showing howships were evolved to meet the circumstances of the different areas in which they had to operate, the different functions they needed to fulfil, and the changing nature of their enemies. ALSO AVAILABLE: Navies of Rome, by Michael Pitassi

An exciting new edition of Bella Bathurst's epic story of Robert Louis Stevenson's ancestors and the building of the Scottish coastal lighthouses against impossible odds. 'Whenever I smell salt water, I know that I am not far from one of the works of my ancestors,' wrote Robert Louis Stevenson in 1880. 'When the lights come out at sundown along the shores of Scotland, I am proud to think they burn more brightly for the genius of my father!' Robert Louis Stevenson was the most famous of the Stevensons, but not by any means the most productive. The Lighthouse Stevensons, all four generations of them, built every lighthouse round Scotland, were responsible for a slew of inventions in both construction and optics, and achieved feats of engineering in conditions that would be forbidding even today. The same driven energy which Robert Louis Stevenson put into writing, his ancestors put into lighting the darkness of the seas. The Lighthouse Stevensons is a story of high endeavour, beautifully told; indeed, this is one of the most celebrated works of historical biography in recent memory.

Racundra's First Cruise is Arthur Ransome's account of Racundra's maiden voyage, which took place in August and September 1922. The cruise took him from Riga, in Latvia to Helsingfors (Helsinki) in Finland, via the Moon Sound and Reval (Tallinn) in Estonia and back. His first book on sailing, it was also the first of his titles that achieved such high levels of success. Although reprinted many times in various editions and formats, Fernhurst Books' hardback edition of the title (2003) was the first to use the original text in its entirety - with the original layout, maps and photographs - and also includes an excellent introduction by Brian Hammett containing a treasure trove of previously unpublished writings, essays and photographs. Ransome's first attempts at Baltic sailing, in his two previous boats, Slug and Kittiwake, are also explained in detail using his writings and illustrations. The life of Ransome's beloved Racundra is chronicled to its conclusion and there is an explanation of how he came to write the book. The original illustrations are enhanced by the inclusion of present day photographs of the same locations. Having gone out of print in 2012, this new paperback edition retains all of the original and additional features; bringing back to life Ransome's epic first cruise in his pride and joy, his treasured Racundra.

With thousands of islands adrift in cerulean waters and a long, labyrinthine coastline, Greeks have always traveled liquid highways. They built the world's first documented lighthouse at the Mediterranean port of Alexandria more than two-thousand years ago, and since that time countless sentinels have risen and fallen on Greek shores. Weather, warfare, erosion, and earthquakes have reduced some to rubble, but more than 100 traditional stone lighthouses still stand in Greece today--old sentries keeping watch over every vessel, large or small, from freighters and tankers and cruise ships to fishermen and ferries. Their romance, beauty, and history are captured in this handy guidebook. Beguiling images, fascinating histories, and helpful travel information will guide you to these beloved seamarks in the land of Hellene.

An overview of a wide range of aspects of maritime social history in the Tudor and early Stuart period. Traditionally, the history of English maritime adventures has focused on the great sea captains and swashbucklers. However, over the past few decades, social historians have begun to examine the less well-known seafarers who wereon the dangerous voyages of commerce, exploration, privateering and piracy, as well as naval campaigns. This book brings together some of their findings. There is no comparable work that provides such an overview of our knowledge of English seamen during the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries and the tumultuous world in which they lived. Subjects covered include trade, piracy, wives, widows and the wider maritime community, health and medicine at sea, religion and shipboard culture, how Tudor and Stuart ships were manned and provisioned, and what has been learned from the important wreck the Mary Rose. CHERYL A. FURY is Professor of History at the University of New Brunswick, and on the editorial board of Northern Mariner [the Canadian journal of maritime history]. Contributors: J.D. ALSOP, JOHN APPLEBY, CHERYL A. FURY, GEOFFREY HUDSON, DAVID LOADES, VINCENT PATARINO JR, ANN STIRLAND.

William McNeill was born in Boston in 1803. At eleven years old, he chose a life at sea, and began gaining his experience to rise to the rank of master of a vessel, which required skill in mathematics and an understanding of the cosmos for navigation. William was a red-head, tall and heavy set. His temper was on a short fuse and, when threatened, he was aggressive in his action, impetuous, blusterous, a little given to exaggeration. He was not fond of waiting to see how things might turn out. William was probably first mate at fifteen years of age on the brigantine Paragon and a master mariner at twenty-one. By the time he joined the Hudson's Bay Company, he was a competent and experienced master mariner and fur trader. Follow his historical immigration to Canada to become one of the most feared and serviceable trading captains of the Honorable Hudson's Bay Co.

The ninth and tenth centuries witnessed the establishment of a substantial network of maritime trade across the Indian Ocean, providing the real-life background to the Sinbad tales. An exceptional exemplar of Arabic travel writing, Accounts of China and India is a compilation of reports and anecdotes about the lands and peoples of this diverse territory, from the Somali headlands of Africa to the far eastern shores of China and Korea. Traveling eastward, we discover a vivid human landscape-from Chinese society to Hindu religious practices-as well as a colorful range of natural wilderness-from flying fish to Tibetan musk-deer and Sri Lankan gems. The juxtaposed accounts create a kaleidoscope of a world not unlike our own, a world on the road to globalization. In its ports, we find a priceless cargo of information. Here are the first foreign descriptions of tea and porcelain, a panorama of unusual social practices, cannibal islands, and Indian holy men-a marvelous, mundane world, contained in the compass of a novella. An English-only edition.

The Herbert Fuller, a three-masted sailing ship loaded with New England lumber, left Boston bound for Buenos Aires on July 8, 1896 with twelve people on board: captain-owner Charles Nash, his wife and Maine childhood-sweetheart Laura, two mates, the 'mulatto' steward, six crewmen, and one passenger. Just before 2 A.M. on the sixth day at sea, the captain, his wife, and the second mate were slaughtered in their individual bunkrooms with the ship's axe, seven or eight blows apiece. Laura Nash was found with her thin nightgown pushed above her hips, her head and upper body smashed and deformed. Incredibly, no one saw or heard the killings... except the killer. After a harrowing voyage back to port for the survivors, the killer among them, it didn't take long for prosecutors to charge, and a Boston jury to convict, the first mate, a naturalized American of mixed blood from St. Kitts. But another man on board, the passenger, a twenty-year-old Harvard quitter from a proper Boston family, had his own dark secrets. Who was the real killer, and what became of these two men? Not a Gentleman's Work is the story of the fates of two vastly different men whose lives intersected briefly on one horrific voyage at sea--a story that reverberates with universal themes: inescapable terror, coerced confession, capital punishment, justice obscured by privilege, perseverance, redemption, and death by tortured soul.

A sweeping, lavishly illustrated one-volume history of the rise of American naval power during World War II "When he is at his best, as he often is in these pages, Kennedy can be dazzling."-Ian W. Toll, New York Times "The book makes for enjoyable reading, owing to the author's easygoing style. . . . Kennedy is an academic who does not write like one; he writes a story, not a treatise."-Robert D. Kaplan, Washington Post "Engrossing."-Brendan Simms, Wall Street Journal In this engaging narrative, brought to life by marine artist Ian Marshall's beautiful full-color paintings, historian Paul Kennedy grapples with the rise and fall of the Great Powers during World War II. Tracking the movements of the six major navies of the Second World War-the allied navies of Britain, France, and the United States and the Axis navies of Germany, Italy, and Japan-Kennedy tells a story of naval battles, maritime campaigns, convoys, amphibious landings, and strikes from the sea. From the elimination of the Italian, German, and Japanese fleets and almost all of the French fleet, to the end of the era of the big-gunned surface vessel, the advent of the atomic bomb, and the rise of an American economic and military power larger than anything the world had ever seen, Kennedy shows how the strategic landscape for naval affairs was completely altered between 1936 and 1946.

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.

Beneath the icy waters of Lake Superior lies a vast museum of maritime treasures, relics, and souls that in years past were lost to the crashing waves of this massive body of water. Those, those who remain on the surface can glimpse some of the sunken bounty, but most of it is accessible only to those who slip into scuba gear and brave the darkness of the deep.
In "Shipwrecks Along Lake Superior's North Shore," veteran diver Stephen B. Daniel, in collaboration with the Great Lakes Shipwreck Preservation Society, provides in-depth tours of the many sunken ships submerged in the waters of this region of Lake Superior. Readers will not only learn the maritime history and structural details of the original vessels, they'll also find the fascinating stories of the wrecks themselves-how they happened, what actions were taken to save both crew and vessel, and the modern-day efforts to preserve these sites. With detailed descriptions and hundreds of photographs, charts, and diagrams that will impress even the most seasoned diver, this book will also appeal to anyone who has ever wondered what nautical mysteries lie beneath the waves of the greatest of the Great Lakes.
Stephen B. Daniel is an active certified diver, shipwreck historian, and current president of the Great Lakes Shipwreck Preservation Society. He is a communications professional at 3M and lives in Woodbury, Minnesota.

Describes the voyages of East India Company's ships to India and China in the eighteenth and early nineteenth centuries, discussing the nature of trade and the involvement of the Company's ships in maritime warfare. Awarded the prestigious Anderson Medal by the Society for Nautical Research for the best volume published on an aspect of maritime history for 2010. This book covers every aspect of the East India Company's trade duringthe final century of its commercial life as the focus moves steadily eastwards, driven by Britain's unquenchable thirst for China tea. The whole spectrum of the trade, physically and temporally, unfolds through the careers of three generations of an important East India shipping family. Starting as second mate in Salisbury in 1746, William Larkins gained a command, then entered the powerful circle of managing owners who monopolized the supply of the Company's ships. His sons and grandsons followed him, all playing a significant part in the wider struggle to establish Britain's political supremacy in India and dominance of the China Sea trade. From the end of the eighteenthcentury liberalization eroded their power and wealth: they had to compete in the provision of the Company's ships, while the virile free merchants in the eastern seas finally broke down the Company's privilege of trading between Britain and the east. The last member of the Larkins family to serve the Company adapted to the prevailing conditions following the Company's withdrawal from trade in 1834, carrying British manufactures to China and bringing back tea, boosting his earnings by investing in smuggled opium. JEAN SUTTON is a maritime historian, author of the highly acclaimed Lords of the East, the East India Company and its Ships [1981, second edition 2000].

Letters of seamen below the rank of commissioned officer which tell us a great deal about shipboard life and about seamen's attitudes. Letters of seamen below the rank of commissioned officer are rare, both in original form and in print. This edited collection of 255 letters, written by seamen in the British Navy and their correspondents between 1793 and 1815, gives voice to a group of men whose lives and thoughts are otherwise mostly unknown. The letters are extremely valuable for the insights which they give into aspects of life below decks and the subjects close to the writers' hearts:money matters, ties with home and homesickness. They also provide eye-witness accounts of events during a tumultuous and important period of British and European history. One group of letters, included as a separate section, comprises the letters of seamen and their family and friends which were intercepted by the authorities during the mutinies of 1797. These letters shed a great deal of light on the extraordinary events of that year and of seamen's attitudes to the mutinies. The editors' introductory material, besides highlighting what the letters tell us about seamen's lives and attitudes, also discusses the extent of literacy amongst seamen, setting this into its wider contemporary popular context. The letters are supported by a substantial editorial apparatus and two detailed appendices containing biographies of seamen and information on select ships which took part in the mutinies of 1797. Helen Watt, a professional archivist and researcher, is currently Project Archivist with the Borthwick Institute for Archives, University of York, and has also worked on other research projects at The National Archives, Kew, theNational Library of Wales and the University of Wales Centre for Advanced Welsh and Celtic Studies, Aberystwyth. Anne Hawkins, a retired civil servant, was Secretary of the Ships' Names and Badges Committee in the early 1990s and has family links with the Navy and Admiralty.

"Boys at Sea" is a study of homoerotic life in the Royal Navy during the age of sail. It deals not only with sex among ordinary crewmen, but reveals that the most consistent feature of prosecutions for sodomy and indecency involved officers forcing their attentions on ships' boys. The book traces every feature of sexuality at sea, and provides a probing look at a dark and terrifying aspect of the lives of youngsters who served in Britain's warships.

Between the end of the Seven Years war in 1763, and the abolition of slavery within its Empire in 1833, Britain's maritime engagement with the wider world was transformed. The period was characterized by the contradictory and competing forces of revolution and reaction, 'liberty' and imperialism, war and peace, enlightenment and enslavement. The essays in this collection offer the path-breaking research of leading scholars to explore the significance and complexities of Britain's maritime world in this key period through a series of thematic discussions, comparing similar and contrasting movements and events. They were originally delivered as lectures in a series jointly sponsored by the Institute of Historical Research and by the Centre for Imperial and Maritime Studies at the National Maritime Museum.

Numerous successful reprints of contemporary works on rigging and seamanship indicate the breadth of interest in the lost art of handling square-rigged ships. Modelmakers, marine painters and enthusiasts need to know not only how the ships were rigged but how much sail was set in each condition of wind and sea, how the various manoeuvres were carried out, and the intricacies of operations like reefing sails or 'catting' an anchor. Contemporary treatises such as Brady's Kedge Anchor in the USA or Darcy Lever's Sheet Anchor in Britain tell only half the story, for they were training manuals intended to be used at sea in conjunction with practical experiences and often only cover officially-condoned practices. This book, on the other hand, is a modern, objective appraisal of the evidence, concerned with the actualities as much as the theory. The author has studied virtually every manual published about seamanship over a period of nearly four centuries. This gives the book a completely international balance and allows him to describe for the first time the proper historical development of seamanship among the major navies of the world.

Shows how merchants sought to minimise losses by forging strong bonds of interpersonal trust amongst a range of employees, partners, and clients. Fruitfully combining approaches from economic history and the cultural history of commerce, this book examines the role of interpersonal trust in underpinning trade, amid the challenges and uncertainties of the eighteenth-centuryAtlantic. It focuses on the nature of mercantile activity in two parts of Spain: Cadiz in the south, and its trade with Spain's American empire; and Bilbao in the north, and its trade with western and northern Europe. In particular, it explores the processes of trade, trading networks and communications, seeking to understand merchant behaviour, especially the choices made by individuals when conducting business - and specifically with whom they chose to deal. Drawing from a broad range of Spanish, Peruvian and British archival sources, the book reveals merchants' experiences of trusting their agents and correspondents, and shows how different factors, from distance to legalframeworks and ethnicity, affected their ability to rely on their contacts. Xabier Lamikiz is Associate Professor of Economic History at the University of the Basque Country. .

An introduction to the nautical history of the North Atlantic. For centuries the Atlantic hemmed Europe behind its storms and mysterious breadth. This was the ocean sea that extended to nowhere, or to the end of the world. Although there were legends of crossings by Celtic saints and Norse ocean farers, it took the vision of an Italian and the finance of a Spanish queen to shatter the shackles of superstition. Columbus was the catalyst who opened the door to the modern world. "Across the Pond" tells of the changing use of this ocean, from a barrier to a route to riches and a highway for trade. There are episodes of exploration and exploitation, there are fighting ships and fisheries, treasure and timber, and always the danger of the sea. There also slipped the slavers with their cargo of shame. This is an ocean that bred some of the world's hardiest mariners, famous men such as Cabot and Hudson and Vespucci, but also the nameless thousands who manned ships, the hard-used mariners from the Chesapeake, the Solway and Seville. Here was bred the down east Yankee, the Nova Scotian bluenose and the Scouser from Liverpool.

The Maritime Silk Road foregrounds the numerous networks that have been woven across oceanic geographies, tying world regions together often far more extensively than land-based routes. On the strength of the new data which has emerged in the last two decades in the form of archaeological findings, as well as new techniques such as GIS modelling, the authors collectively demonstrate the existence of a very early global maritime trade. From architecture to cuisine, and language to clothing, evidence points to early connections both within Asia and between Asia and other continents-well before European explorations of the Global South. The human stories presented here offer insights into both the extent and limits of this global exchange, showing how goods and people travelled vast distances, how they were embedded in regional networks, and how local cultures were shaped as a result.

"Angus Konstam successfully combines a vivid account of a famous pirate with a richly detailed survey of his turbulent and brutal world."
--David Cordingly, author of "Under the Black Flag: The Romance and Reality of Life Among the Pirates"

"Angus Konstam's "Blackbeard" is more than the story of one pirate, much more. Konstam paints a wide canvas of Blackbeard and his life and times, of the whole sordid and frightening world of piracy. With writing that is at once elegant and accessible, he explores the rise of the 'Golden Age' of piracy, illustrating how simple merchant sailors and privateersmen could be drawn into the most bloody profession of all, and become enemies of the world. Using the pirate Blackbeard as a starting point, Konstam gives the reader a broad understanding of the world of 17th century piracy, from the lives of the men who sailed under the black flag to those who tried to stop them. "Blackbeard" is a great read - informed, scholarly, thorough, accurate and fun."
--James L. Nelson, author of the "Brethren of the Coast" Trilogy and "Benedict Arnold's Navy"

The scientific and technological revolution in shipbuilding in the early twentieth century had a great impact on both the military and the industrial/commercial world. Miwao Matsumoto focuses on the relationship between this revolution and the structure and function of 'technology gatekeepers' during the process of transfer of marine science and technology from Britain to Japan in this period. His analysis is undertaken in light of a new 'composite model' of Japanese industrialization, which reveals more profound and subtle sociological implications than 'success or failure' type accounts of industrialization usually suggest.

In this engaging tale of movement from one hemisphere to another, we see doctors at work attending to their often odious and demanding duties at sea, in quarantine, and after arrival. The book shows, in graphic detail, just why a few notorious voyages suffered tragic loss of life in the absence of competent supervision. Its emphasis, however, is on demonstrating the extent to which the professionalism of the majority of surgeon superintendents, even on ships where childhood epidemics raged, led to the extraordinary saving of life on the Australian route in the Victorian era.

This colourful history covers the SS United States' active service from 1952 to 1969 when she dominated the seas of Atlantic, sweeping all rivals before her. The astonishing operational capacity of this national icon of the United States, with her red, white and blue funnels, sleek streamlined hull and silver coated fittings, was shrouded in secrecy in case she was ever required to be converted to a troop carrier. Andrew Britton presents a revealing insight into the record-breaking liner, how she performed in the secret sea trials and her epic maiden voyage. Compiled from a wealth of previously unpublished material, drawn from the author's own unparalleled collection and others from around the world, this special commemorative book is packed with historical colour photography from both sides of the Atlantic, including the maiden voyage departure from New York. This evocative book will be a must for all shipping enthusiasts and is sure to enhance the fine reputation of the preserved SS United States for future generations.