Unlike some other reproductions of classic texts (1) We have not used OCR(Optical Character Recognition), as this leads to bad quality books with introduced typos. (2) In books where there are images such as portraits, maps, sketches etc We have endeavoured to keep the quality of these images, so they represent accurately the original artefact. Although occasionally there may be certain imperfections with these old texts, we feel they deserve to be made available for future generations to enjoy.

Many of the earliest books, particularly those dating back to the 1900s and before, are now extremely scarce and increasingly expensive. We are republishing these classic works in affordable, high quality, modern editions, using the original text and artwork.

History of the United States Naval Operations in World War II.

Completing Morison's monumental study of the explorers who discovered and journeyed through the coasts of the Americas, ths volume covers not only all of Latin America, including theCaribbean area and South America, but also Bermuda, Florida and California.

This is an abridgement of Samuel Morison's magnum opus, The European Discovery of America, in which he describes the early voyages that led to the discovery of the New World. All the acclaimed Morison touches are here - the meticulous research and authoritative scholarship, along with the personal and compelling narrative style that gives the reader the feeling of having been there. Morison, of course, has been there, and The Great Explorers is enriched with photographs and maps he made while personally retracing the great voyages.

The late Samuel Eliot Morison, a former U.S. Navy admiral, was also one of America's premier historians. Combining a first-hand knowledge of the sea and transatlantic travel with a brilliantly readable narrative style, he produced what has become nothing less than the definitive account of the great age of European exploration. In his riveting and richly illustrated saga, Morison offers a comprehensive account of all the known voyages by Europeans to the New World from 500 A.D. to the seventeenth century. Together, the two volumes of The European Discovery of America tell the compelling stories of the many intrepid explorers who made what was then a journey frought with danger--figures as diverse as Leif Ericsson, Columbus, John Cabot, Jacques Cartier, Martin Frobisher, Magellan, Sir Walter Raleigh, and Sir Francis Drake to name but a few. They also follow the adventures of lesser-known but no less interesting mariners and offer a detailed look at those who set them forth on their travels.
In the first volume, The Nrthern Voyages--winner of the prestigious Bancroft Prize for History--Morison re-creates the lives and perilous times of those who claimed to have seen the shores of North America in the 600 years after the Norsemen first landed. He brings to his account a rare immediacy, making the drama and unpredictability of their voyages as significant in relation to the people of their era as the astronauts' journeys have been for our own times. Morison also offers a fascinating look at the imaginary lands reported by early travelers (such mythical places as Antilia and the Seven Cities, the glorious Kingdoms of Norumbega and Saguenay, and Hy-Brasil the Isle of the Blest) and examines as well the alleged discoverers of these lands. With warmth and wit he distinguishes fact from fiction, and imaginary explorers and their exploits from actual men and events.
In the second volume, Morison turns his attention to the navigators who negotiated the waters of the Caribbean and the treacherous coasts of South America, even following them as they ventured ashore to the dark inland of the southern continent. The Southern Voyages begins with the events leading up to Columbus's arrival in San Salvador in 1492 and concludes with the discovery of the southernmost bit of land, Cape Horn, by Dutch explorers in 1616. In between, Morison retraces the routes of all the great mariners, including a step-by-step account of Magellan's voyage that would take him around the world. Morison has enlivened his narrative with a wide range of source material from Italy, Spain, Portugal, and South America, in the process shedding new light on questions that have divided scholars througout history: Did Sir Francis Drake discover San Francisco Bay? Was Amerigo Vespucci a great explorer or a fraud--or a little of both? What role did the French have in the European discovery of Brazil?
Each volume brims with contemporary illustrations, maps (many of them specially drawn for this history) and photographs (often taken by Morison himself as he flew at low altitude along the coastal routes of explorers), which together identify virtually every allusion to land and sea made by the great European navigators in their ship logs and their later accounts.
With the 500th anniversary of the European arrival in America came much controversy over Columbus's true legacy. With its lively and engaging style, and with its unsurpassed understanding of the age, The European Discovery of America helps put the era of exploration in much-needed perspective. Anyone interested in the history of America, indeed, in the history of Western Civilization, will find these volumes absolutely essential.

Allied shipping was in a desperate situation in 1942, as the Germans were building U-boats faster than the British and the Americans could sink them. By the summer of 1943, however, the tide had turned, and Germany had lost the strategic initiative in the Atlantic. This is the story of the great offensive that allowed the Western Allies to gain the upper hand in the Atlantic war. Morison describes the development of new weapons on both sides that revolutionised the art of antisubmarine warfare: acoustic torpedoes, guided missiles, the hedgehog, the snorkel, the airborne microwave radar, the sonobuoy, and the"huff-duff" or high-frequency direction-finder. With thrilling immediacy, he chronicles air attacks on U-boats in the Bay of Biscay, hunter-killer groups that protected escort carriers by hunting down wolf-packs of German submarines, skirmishes conducted by radar under cover of darkness and heavy fog, and the dramatic sinking of the Scharnhorst in the North Atlantic. Bristling with action as well as fascinating technical detail, Morison's account brilliantly conveys the interplay of suspense and surprise as first one side, then the other gained the advantage. About the Author Samuel Eliot Morison, an eminent Harvard professor, was appointed by close friend Franklin D. Roosevelt to write the history of U.S. naval operations during World War II after convincing the president that too many wartime histories were written after the fact or from a distance. Hailed for its accuracy, narrative pace, and detail, this monumental work presents a complete record of the U.S. Navy's war at sea, covering the strategic planning, battle tactics, and technological advances, as well as the heroic actions of American sailors.

Here is no catalogue of ships, reader, nor naval chronicle, but a story of maritime enterprise; of the shipping, seaborne commerce, whaling, and fishing belonging to one American commonwealth. I have chosen to catch the story at half flood, when Massachusetts vessels first sought Far-Eastern waters, and to stay with it only so long as wind and sail would serve. For to one who has sailed a clipper ship, even in fancy, all later models of ocean carriage must seem decadent. Samuel Eliot Morison