Out of the Depths explores all aspects of shipwrecks across 4,000 years, examining their historical context and significance, and showing how shipwrecks can be time capsules, shedding new light on long-departed societies and civilizations. Alan G. Jamieson not only informs readers of the technological developments over the last sixty years that have made the true appreciation of shipwrecks possible, but covers shipwrecks in culture, maritime archaeology, treasure hunters and their environmental impacts. Although shipwrecks have become less common in recent decades, their implications have become more wide-ranging: since the 1960s, foundering supertankers have caused massive environmental disasters, and in 2021 the blocking of the Suez Canal by the giant container ship Ever Given had a serious impact on global trade.

Faith and Sword gives a concise history of what has arguably been the longest conflict in human history - a conflict that continues, in a new form, to this day. The overtly religious Christian-Muslim struggle lasted for nearly thirteen centuries, and for most of that period the Muslims were in the ascendant. The Christians eventually halted the tide of Arab conquest, but their counterstroke in the Crusades ended in failure and the Muslim threat was renewed by the Ottoman Turks. Only after 1600 did the Christians finally begin to gain the upper hand, with the fall of the Ottoman empire after the First World War seeming to mark the final victory of the Christians. Between 1918 and 1979, however, the Christian-Muslim conflict continued, but in a less obviously religious form. Christendom became the largely secularised West, and Muslim success in throwing off European colonialism owed more to secular nationalists than religious leaders. After the Iranian revolution of 1979 the picture changed again: religious fundamentalism revived on the Muslim side and the USA became its principal target.Today the USA has never been more militarily dominant, yet it is rendered insecure by a tiny minority of religious militants whose outlook is said to have been superseded by the march of history. Alan G. Jamieson provides a wide-ranging and detailed survey of this conflict through all its stages, and shows how the present situation has emerged. He ranges widely in time, from the original Arab conquests in the seventh century to the present conflicts in Iraq and Afghanistan. All areas of conflict are included, from Morocco to Indonesia, and from Russia to Somalia. This authoritative and readable study will appeal equally to scholars, students and the general reader, giving an accessible introduction to one of the most important conflicts of our time.

During the sixteenth century Sir John Dexter, an English Catholic exile, makes a new life as a soldier of the king of Spain in the war against the Ottoman Turks around the Mediterranean Sea. Five hundred years later, Tom Dexter, a descendant of Sir John, is a member of Britain's Secret Intelligence Service (MI6) carrying on the war against terrorism in which he opposes the modern day forces of militant Islam. The two men inhabit very different worlds, centuries apart, yet there are linkages between their experiences. The novel interweaves the two worlds and different destinies of Sir John and Tom. It follows Sir John through his experiences in the great events of his time, including the siege of Malta and the great naval battle of Lepanto. In the modern world Tom and his American colleagues in the CIA are on the trail of Islamist terrorists and their deadly missiles, but Tom is dangerously distracted by his love for Susie Marsden, who has her own agenda. For Tom, as for his ancestor Sir John, the climax of his endeavours takes place in Morocco. That country becomes the crossroads of the years.

This book examines how the principal British maritime industries - shipping, shipbuilding and ports - adapted, or failed to adapt, to a changing world in the period between 1918 to 1990, and discusses their reactions to the great opportunities seemingly offered by offshore oil and gas from the mid-1960s. At the outbreak of World War I, Britain's maritime industries still dominated the world. The British merchant fleet was by far the largest in the world, the nation's shipbuilding output eclipsed all rivals, and British ports were busy and expanding.By 1990, British shipping was a shadow of its former self, shipbuilding seemed on the verge of total collapse, and although the ports had been modernised, trade was concentrated at only a few of them. For almost four centuries, these industries had been of vital importance to Britain's wealth and power, but by 1990, politicians scarcely gave them a second thought.