Maritime history Books

Book SynopsisThe communities along the coastline of Ghana boast a long and vibrant maritime culture. In the nineteenth and early twentieth centuries, the region experienced creeping British imperialism and incorporation into the British Gold Coast colony. Drawing on a wealth of Ghanian archival sources, historian Kwaku Nti shows how many aspects of traditional maritime daily lifecustomary ritual performances, fishing, and concepts of ownership, and landserved as a means of resistance and allowed residents to contest and influence the socio-political transformations of the era. Nti explored how the Ebusua (female) and Asafo (male) local social groups, especially in Cape Coast, became bastions of indigenous identity and traditions during British colonial rule, while at the same time functioning as focal points for demanding a share of emerging economic opportunities. A convincing demonstration of the power of the indigenous everyday life to complicate the reach of empire, Maritime Culture and EverydaTrade Review"This book provides an in-depth study of maritime culture as well as everyday life in 19th and 20th century coastal Ghana, with an emphasis on the social history of Cape Coast. Kwaku Nti, its author, deserves high commendation for his meticulous research and laser-sharp analysis."—A.B. Assensoh, Emeritus Professor, Indiana University"Maritime Culture and Everyday Life in Nineteenth- and Twentieth-Century Coastal Ghana puts Ghanaian fisherfolk, gender-based organizations, and traders front and center in the making of a 'colonial' city. Trying to explain to students how to mine colonial documents and read between the lines for African ideas, frames of reference, goals, and agency? Teach this book. It is a stunning model."—Laura Fair, Columbia University"Maritime Culture and Everyday Life in Nineteenth- and Twentieth-Century Coastal Ghana, Kwaku Nti makes an important contribution to the social history of indigenous African institutions and figures, and the conflicts and compromises brokered between them and British imperialists on Africa's Gold Coast/Ghana. Using the optics of Cape Coast, broader historical patterns are insightfully revealed."—Kwasi Konadu, John D. and Catherine T. MacArthur Endowed Chair, Colgate University"Maritime Culture and Everyday Life in Nineteenth- and Twentieth-Century Coastal Ghana is a well-written, engaging, compelling book that brilliantly centers Akan people in the telling of their history. Kwaku Nti's use of Akan sources, coupled with his skillful reading of European sources through an Akan lens, opens new vistas for considering Africans' historical experiences. A must read for Africanists and maritime historians, alike."—Kevin Dawson, University of California, Merced

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Book SynopsisA riveting tale of danger, adventure, and connectionIn 1835 young Chinese scholar Cai Tinglan was caught in a typhoon while sailing across the Taiwan Strait. He and his shipmates spent a harrowing week at sea before drifting to the coast of central Vietnam. With an escort of Vietnamese soldiers, Cai traveled north along the famous Mandarin Road, meeting governors-general of each province he passed through along his overland journey to Fujian Province in China. Cai documented his experiences in Miscellany of the South Seas (Hainan zazhu), a vivid account of clothing, food, religious practices, government affairs, and other aspects of daily life in early Nguy?n dynasty Vietnam. Cai's encounters with diasporic Chinese show the Hokkien merchant community's penetration into Vietnamese society, while his warm embrace by Nguy?n officials illustrates a shared elite world of classical culture across international borders. In this first English translation, Kathlene Baldanza and Zhao Lu provide Trade Review"This excellent translation by Kathlene Baldanza and Zhao Lu is simultaneously a pedagogical tool and a work of scholarship that contributes to our understanding of the historical connections between East Asia and Southeast Asia, specifically China and Vietnam…[H]ighly recommended to specialists and non-specialists alike." * Journal of Chinese History *"Baldanza and Zhao’s introduction, a precious addition to the original document, offers detailed information on the historical and cultural context, which helps readers understand Cai’s significance in Taiwan’s history and his interactions with local Vietnamese and Chinese immigrants. Altogether, this book is an invaluable source for researching and teaching the environmental history of Southeast Asia, the shared Confucian commonwealth spanning Vietnam and Qing China, and transnational migrants and trading communities, as well as precolonial Vietnamese society." * H-Net Reviews *

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Book SynopsisTrade Review"This excellent translation by Kathlene Baldanza and Zhao Lu is simultaneously a pedagogical tool and a work of scholarship that contributes to our understanding of the historical connections between East Asia and Southeast Asia, specifically China and Vietnam…[H]ighly recommended to specialists and non-specialists alike." * Journal of Chinese History *"Baldanza and Zhao’s introduction, a precious addition to the original document, offers detailed information on the historical and cultural context, which helps readers understand Cai’s significance in Taiwan’s history and his interactions with local Vietnamese and Chinese immigrants. Altogether, this book is an invaluable source for researching and teaching the environmental history of Southeast Asia, the shared Confucian commonwealth spanning Vietnam and Qing China, and transnational migrants and trading communities, as well as precolonial Vietnamese society." * H-Net Reviews *

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Book SynopsisA sweeping maritime history that demonstrates the far-ranging impact that the tools and infrastructure developed for navigating the Great Lakes had on the national economies, politics, and environment of continental North America.Trade ReviewMastering the Inland Seas offers a broad panorama of the conflicts, policies, and personalities that created the modern navigation system on the Great Lakes. Far more than just lighthouses, it draws in the political storms of antebellum America, the federal government's role, and the long-term impact of these encounters." - Matthew Lawrence Daley, Grand Valley State University"Magnificently researched and written with clarity and high energy, Karamanski's Mastering the Inland Seas tells the hidden history of how generations of maritime peoples-from indigenous canoe paddlers to modern mariners-navigated and domesticated the watery wilderness of the Great Lakes." - Robert Michael Morrissey, University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign

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Book SynopsisJeremy Black considers how the ocean affected British exploration, defence, trade, commerce and the role of the navy, as well as the attitudes and perceptions of the British people themselves.Trade Review“Black is refreshingly unapologetic about the British Empire and this book is a valuable contribution to the debate about its merits and demerits”—The Sunday Telegraph“A nuanced, well-researched history of the ways in which Britain’s maritime industry influenced its foreign policy and public culture. . . . The result is not only an important contribution to military history, but a reminder that we are all part of a long historical narrative.”—Publishers Weekly

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Book SynopsisA vivid account of the forgotten citizens of maritime London who sustained Britain during the Revolutionary Wars In the half-century before the Battle of Trafalgar the port of London became the commercial nexus of a global empire and launch pad of Britain's military campaigns in North America and Napoleonic Europe. The unruly riverside parishes east of the Tower seethed with life, a crowded, cosmopolitan, and incendiary mix of sailors, soldiers, traders, and the network of ordinary citizens that served them. Harnessing little-known archival and archaeological sources, Lincoln recovers a forgotten maritime world. Her gripping narrative highlights the pervasive impact of war, which brought violence, smuggling, pilfering from ships on the river, and a susceptibility to subversive political ideas. It also commemorates the working maritime community: shipwrights and those who built London's first docks, wives who coped while husbands were at sea, and early trade unions. This meticulously reTrade Review“This book inexorably ties the lives of citizens to the life of the port, and you will never see London in the same light. It is enlightening, well-written, gripping and down-to-earth. This is a must-read for anyone whose ancestors lived in not just London but any busy port during the 18th century, by an author who really knows her stuff.”—Janet Dempsey, Who Do You Think You Are“This is a vivid evocation of the riverside life of eighteenth-century London, with sailors and landmen, rich and poor, bankers, merchants, stevedores, wharfingers and boatmen living and working cheek by jowl in the middle of the biggest and busiest port in the world. Many have glanced at this lost world from a distance, but few can equal Margarette Lincoln’s intimate knowledge of it.”—N. A. M. Rodger, author of The Command of the Ocean“[A] marvellous account . . . enlightening”—Steven Simon, Survival“Those of us who love south-east London will enjoy Margarette Lincoln’s Trading in War: London’s Maritime World in the Age of Cook and Nelson, which uncovers the lost world of the London docks in the period when Britain first became a world empire based on maritime trade.”—Jonathan Sumption, Spectator, “Books of the Year”Winner of the Outstanding Academic Title for 2018 award sponsored by Choice“A rich and vibrant study of the riverside boroughs of London to the east of Tower Bridge, the world’s greatest maritime city, in an age of revolution and social change. Lincoln catches a transient world of moving people, changing work, and the integrated lives of sea captains and servants, shipwrights, stowaways and thieves.”—Andrew Lambert, author of Nelson and War at Sea in the Age of Sail“Written at a fine, taut pace, this account of the industrial and trading powerhouse of maritime London at the end of the eighteenth century demonstrates that living then was at times far from comfortable, even for those who prospered. This is a new and comprehensive social analysis, with wonderful stories taken from unusual sources. Here, too, is the underside of society, riot and murder, poverty and theft, alongside the economic vibrancy along the banks of the Thames, capitalists and workers taking advantage of the business stoked up by lengthy wars.”—Roger Knight, author of Britain Against Napoleon“A fascinating glimpse of a part of London that is so often overlooked. Margarette Lincoln takes us into the minutiae of the lives of ‘ordinary’ citizens, and shows how they are in fact far from ordinary: shipbuilders, sailors and explorers and many others who made Britain the leading maritime nation of the period. And even more remarkable, we get to know the women of this watery world, often the unsung heroines in turbulent times.”—Margaret Willes, author of The Curious World of Samuel Pepys and John Evelyn

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Book SynopsisA deeply researched, analytically rich, and vivid account of England's early maritime empire

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Book SynopsisW. Jeffrey Bolster, master mariner and historian, shatters the myth that black seafaring in the age of sail was limited to the Middle Passage. Rescuing African American seamen from obscurity, this stirring account reveals the critical role sailors played in helping forge new identities for black people in America.Trade Review[A] first-rate contribution. Bolster…spent a decade pulling together for the first time two centuries of seaborne black history… [T]he book crackles with enough drama for many novels or plays. -- Carla Davidson * New York Times Book Review *For the past 10 years, W. Jeffrey Bolster…has labored obsessively to unearth the rich and long-forgotten history of America's black mariners. His newly published book…may prove the most instructive historical offering of the year. It reminds Americans that black seamen, like black cowboys, labored long and to great effect at one of the cultural linchpins of American history… [W]hat's most remarkable about Bolster's book is both the numbers of black sailors he found in the past and the extraordinary wealth of evidence documenting their lives. -- Ken Ringle * Washington Post *[An] extraordinary story… Bolster's writing is intelligent and strong, as he stresses his central point that the life of a black sailor in the age of sail was essentially a dignified one… Bolster argues convincingly that for any ambitious African American trapped in the plantation world of the Americas, the life of a maritime sailor represented a huge leap forward in circumstances and possibilities… The real achievement of Black Jacks is to remind us that black seafaring in the age of sail was not limited to the middle passage, and that black sailors were the eyes, the ears, and the mouthpieces of the African American community at a time when America was attempting to stifle the community's collective cry of outrage… Bolster shows us that for over a century, while seafaring remained a contemptible occupation for the white man, it was a noble occupation for the black man, and it played a central role in the creation of an African American identity. -- Caryl Phillips * New Republic *Himself a master mariner, Bolster presents us with an area of the African diaspora which as been overlooked even by scholars of African American history. His book is important at a number of levels. It is a most original piece of work, based on careful scholarship, yet it also tells a cracking yarn. The subject may seem, at first glance, marginal. In fact it is central, not least because all Africans who survived into the Americas had themselves endured a major maritime experience. We now know, thanks to Bolster, the degree to which maritime experiences formed a continuing theme in African American life from first conquest until the mid-19th century. -- James Walvin * Times Higher Education Supplement *Black Jacks is one of the most significant historical works published thus far in this decade. That it is about an important group of maritime workers—black seamen—is an added bonus. The fact that it is also a joy to read provides a third excellent reason to recommend this book… [It] is an exhaustively researched, beautifully written volume that cries out to be read by a broad cross-section of historians… All in all, this is a book worth owning and returning to repeatedly. Most important, it is that rare book that deserves to be savoured, literally and figuratively. In short, Black Jacks is a magnificent scholarly achievement that can be commended to readers with no serious reservations. -- Lewis R. Fischer * The Northern Mariner *This long-overdue book takes us on a voyage of discovery in what we thought were familiar waters as W. Jeffrey Bolster—a veteran seaman and University of New Hampshire associate professor of history—lifts our collective awareness of a little known maritime subject… Bolster eloquently articulates his keen knowledge of 18th- and 19th-century American sea history as it relates to those of African descent, slave and free, seamen, laborers, statesmen, and entrepreneurs… Black Jacks intellectually broadens our perspective by bringing this unsung saga to a bright light and its rightful position on American and sea history's horizons. -- Steven W. Jones * Sea History *This highly readable book and thoroughly researched study offers interesting details of shipboard racial interaction and surprising information on the reception afforded African Americans in Atlantic and Caribbean ports. -- John C. Walter * Seattle Times *A fascinating, untold, and important story. -- Geoffrey Elan * Yankee Magazine *This book is an excellent combination of scholarship and engagement, always informed by the author's first-hand knowledge of the sea. -- Frank McLynn * Literary Review *In Black Jacks, historian and master mariner W. Jeffrey Bolster tells the long-ignored story of black seamen in this country between 1740 and the end of the Civil War, revealing the critical role that they played in helping to forge a black identity. At the beginning of the this period, Anglo-American deep-sea labor was largely white, and virtually all sea-faring blacks were slaves. By the turn of the nineteenth century, almost one in five U.S. seamen were black, and most of them were free. And at the end of the period, the tide had turned again, and a combination of different factors squeezed most African-Americans out of the maritime labor force. Professor Bolster never loses sight of the larger picture, but he also recognizes the collection of compelling stories that he has gathered—stories of the famous (such as Frederick Douglass, who escaped from slavery disguised as a sailor), of the nameless, and of many more in between. * Journal of Maritime Law and Commerce *Black Jacks fills a big gap in Atlantic maritime history. It wonderfully describes the heretofore untold contributions of the tens of thousands of free and enslaved black men who served on board ships in the coastal trade and on deep-sea expeditions in the 18th and 19th centuries. Inspired by the tales of elderly black sailors in the Caribbean heard while he was a tall ship captain, Bolster vividly details the adventures and experiences of African American sailors throughout the seafaring world. * U.S. Magazine *Licensed master mariner Bolster writes a descriptively rich, engaging narrative of African American seafarers from the 1740s to the 1860s. He recounts how tens of thousands of African American sailors formed an important sector of the maritime labor force, shaped mariner culture and the identity of free black communities, and linked the Atlantic world of the black diaspora… This excellent study is highly recommended. * Library Journal *Many black sailors were sophisticated linguists, entrepreneurs in port, ready raconteurs; and Bolster draws from a range of literate, often lyrical voices in this little-known labor force… [A] well-researched book. * Publishers Weekly *In Black Jacks, W. Jeffrey Bolster tells an almost unknown side of blacks and the sea, stories of African American slaves, free men, and runaways who worked as seamen from 1740 to 1865. It's the story, he says, of a phenomenon that in all the generally accepted books and museum exhibits was basically being ignored… [Black Jacks] is thoroughly researched and documented. But Bolster knows that history is story, and he has turned out a highly readable book that focuses on the lives of many remarkable men. The black sailors' dedication to freedom is a recurring theme of the book… Black sailors brought the news of the world, especially the black world, to the plantation slaves when they stopped to pick up or discharge goods, giving the isolated slaves a sense of being part of a much larger community. They provided role models of pride and independence to those who felt beaten down by the rigors of slavery. And they frequently hid slaves aboard their vessels, enabling them to escape to freedom. As Bolster says in his conclusion, black sailors 'contributed to a larger sense of black collectivity… [They] were crucial cultural mediators in the creation of black America.' -- Pat Parnell * King George Journal *Ten years were spent in researching and writing Black Jacks, and the result is a major contribution to African-American and American maritime histories. It is unlikely that readers of the book will ever again limit their view of slavery to field hands and domestics or associate blacks at sea only as victims of the dreaded Middle Passage. The overwhelming number of black seamen prior to the American revolution were slaves… In vivid detail, this book relates the contributions black jacks made to African-American society as sources of pride in accomplishment, as dispensers of knowledge of a world beyond the sea, and as contributors to the formation of a distinctive black culture in America. Bolster has produced a work of sound scholarship that tells a very important story in a most exciting fashion. -- Frederick M. Binder * Journal of the Early Republic *Jeffrey Bolster's personal seafaring experience lends vibrance to his gorgeously detailed account Black Jacks. This deserving analysis of Africa-American sailors, who totaled twenty thousand men and composed one fifth of the United States' maritime labor force by the early nineteenth century, illustrates important ways of conceptualizing both early African-American and maritime history… These is no doubt that Black Jacks will have a powerful impact on the field. Bolster's portrayal of maritime work culture is a significant contribution to our understanding of early African-American work settings. His imaginative research and use of sources, neglected in this review, set a high standard for future work in maritime history. Most importantly, as interest in the fields of both African-American and Atlantic history continues to surge, Bolster has written the best overall assessment to date of African-American seafarers. Black Jacks introduces Bolster as an important figure in these vibrant fields of research. -- Thomas Buchanan * Journal of Social History *W. Jeffrey Bolster charts new ground by examining in detail the role and experiences of African-American seamen in a crucial phase of American history. To support his main argument that 'the rise and fall of African American seafaring in the age of sail was central to the creation of black America,' Bolster skillfully teases out from numerous primary sources material on African-American mariners in Africa and the diaspora… [His] important book provides a fascinating glimpse of the experiences of African-American seamen. His interesting and detailed description of the thousands of captured black sailors held at Dartmoor Prison during the War of 1812 recalls the dangers that often accompanied these individuals, for whom no eighteenth or nineteenth-century society had a clearly defined legal position. Rather than being simply maritime history, this is social history at its most eloquent… By successfully mining many traditional sources, [Bolster] has helped us understand the multifaceted nature of the African-American community. -- Edward L. Cox * American Historical Review *Almost nothing has been set down on the important role both slaves and free blacks played in the maritime trades in the 18th and early 19th centuries… Jeffrey Bolster has now moved to fill that notable gap with a volume sure to make its mark in maritime history. Well researched, carefully documented, precise in its distinctions and pleasantly readable, this book will stand as a tribute to America's seagoing blacks, as well as to its author… As a bonus—reflective of Bolster's 10 years at sea—it vividly portrays life before the mast… For a vicarious experience of life on a sailing vessel…during America's days of sailing glory, this book is the one to read. -- James M. Morris * Daily Press (Hampton Roads, VA) *Black Jacks is more than the story of African American seafarers between 1740 and 1865. It is a vivid account of the fluid and multi-dimensional nature of black identity… Bolster's book is a marvelous and readable account of a previously neglected segment of American history. It convincingly forces us to reconsider the roles blacks played in forging the modern identity of America. Take together with Luraghi's History of the Confederate Navy, these important studies are worthy additions to the bookshelf of anyone who professes an interest in southern history. -- Gene A. Smith * Journal of Southwest Georgia History *From time to time, a new book picks up a long-neglected thread of history and carefully traces the way it is delicately interwoven with the rest of the fabric. To read such a work is not only to appreciate the author's skill and perception, it is to never look at the fabric the same way again. Such a book is Black Jacks, by W. Jeffrey Bolster, seaman and historian… A careful researcher and a level-headed writer, he offers perceptions that bring this history alive. -- Tom Jackson * WoodenBoat Review *Black Jacks investigates a substantial and largely unexamined African American presence aboard Anglo-American coasting craft, 'blue water' merchants, privateers, pirate ships, whalers and naval vessels… Specialist and general readers will surely share Bolster's sense of the importance of his subject and warm to his lively and evocative presentation. -- Peter Thompson * English Historical Review *Black Jacks places sailors of color squarely at the center of Atlantic maritime culture. W. Jeffrey Bolster deserves our thanks for recovering an exciting, essential chapter in African-American history, one that not only deepens our appreciation for the roles black men played (as both able seamen and buccaneers), but also vividly demonstrates the fluidity and multi-dimensional complexity of black identity. -- Charles Johnson, author of Middle PassageBolster's own long experience as a seaman adds a note of realism and color to his fine descriptions of life aboard the early sailing ships. His extensive research has given him a notably sensitive understanding of the precarious lives led by black sailors, both at sea and ashore. He has breathed new life into the neglected history of black mariners, both slave and free. This story has remained too long untold. -- Gerald E. Thomas, Rear Admiral, U.S. NavyOne more of the gaps in African-American history has been filled, thanks to Jeffrey Bolster's book, Black Jacks. Here, Jacks is short for jacktar ('colloq., sailor'). In any given year between 1800 and 1850, Bolster estimates, shipping employed more than 100,000 American males; one-fifth were black… [This] is a seamark book. -- James H. Bready * Baltimore Sun *W. Jeffrey Bolster's purpose here is to urge people to rethink black maritime history… [He] admirably reveals the richness of Africa's legacy to America as it was fashioned over centuries by mariners who endured deprivation and hardship but seized their opportunities with imagination and courage. -- Sari Hornstein * William and Mary Quarterly *Black Jacks is a work of energy, imagination, and deep knowledge of a central experience in African-American history. It exudes Jeffrey Bolster's engagement with the subject, imbuing the history of black sailors with something of the mildewed stench of the forecastle and the bracing aromas of the open sea, the harsh realities of shipboard tyranny and the liberating possibilities of the sea. It will quickly become a central work in African-American history. -- Ira Berlin, University of Maryland at College ParkThis book breaks new ground in seeking to explore and explain trends in employment of blacks, free and enslaved, in the American merchant fleet up to the Civil War… Both maritime historians and historians of American slavery will learn much from Jeffrey Bolster's most useful study. -- David Richardson * Labour History Review *This deeply researched and elegantly written book…is impressive…an important…substantial work of historical scholarship. Students of early America, African America, slavery, and maritime history cannot afford to ignore it. -- Frank Cogliano * Borderlines *This marvelously rich study of a scarcely known, but critically important, aspect of American maritime history will surprise and delight readers. A groundbreaking study told with sensitivity and depth, it demands that we broaden our view of eighteenth and nineteenth century African American labor and its importance to seafaring. -- James Oliver Horton, George Washington UniversityThe fruit of a truly prodigious amount of research carried out by a blue-water sailor turned historian, it deals with an important but largely neglected strand in the cable of American history… He shows many almost entirely forgotten aspects of that vanished world… I shall not soon forget his description of the hundreds of captured black American sailors in Dartmoor during the war of 1812. -- Patrick O'Brian, author of The Yellow AdmiralBolster has done a fine job in illuminating an important part of American maritime history. He makes a valuable contribution to standard antebellum American history by looking at a major period of change from the black sailor's perspective. He is to be congratulated for shedding light on a too-long neglected subject. -- Tom Costa * International Journal of Maritime History *Bolster's book offers a marvelous entry into the world of the black sailor and the way men of African descent spread Afro-Atlantic art and culture across the seven seas. Melville would have been proud to read this text. -- Robert Farris Thompson, Yale UniversityThis [is] a lively exploration of a neglected chapter of American history. -- Michael Kenney * Boston Globe *Black Jacks does stand out as a landmark: the first published history of the American black men that documents their lives as sailors in a broadly conceived Atlantic world… Black Jacks is thought-provoking work that builds upon the studies of slaves and free blacks outside the plantation systems. Bolster applies the insights of the authors of these works to an understudied area in black history. -- Craig T. Marion * Journal of World History *Black Jacks provides a nuanced account of black maritime life and labor in the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries… Bolster writes with the authority of a seasoned seaman and the sensitivity of a well-trained social historian. Drawing on these aptitudes his account is particularly rich in its explorations of the dynamics of race and class, the generation and play of cultural styles and forms, and the politics of meaning that might be inferred from the descriptive traces of past actions he so ably recovers from his sources… Black Jacks is a well-written, impressively documented, handsomely produced book that certainly does offer a convincing corrective; a book that should appeal to undergraduate and non-academic readers as well as to specialists. -- Charles V. Carnegie * New West Indian Guide *

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Book SynopsisWendell Willkie lost the 1940 presidential election but became America’s most effective ambassador, embarking on a 7-week plane trip to bolster the allied cause, encountering everyone from de Gaulle and Stalin to Chiang Kai-shek. Against a wave of nationalism, Willkie promoted a message of global interconnection and peaceful engagement.Trade ReviewIf isolationist slogans such as ‘America First’ drive you to despair, The Idealist might be thebook for you…Zipp…has captured Willkie’s ‘brief, blazing moment,’ a little-remembered interlude when America was at war but already worrying about the postwar order. Younger readers, dismayed by today’s various nationalisms, may be comforted to learn that isolationist and internationalist impulses—like so much else—are cyclical phenomena. -- Roger Lowenstein * Wall Street Journal *As a new Administration now looks to reimagine US foreign policy in an increasingly chaotic world beset by global challenges from the pandemic to climate change, Zipp’s account of Willkie’s travels and ideas offers some food for thought. -- Michael Sheldrick * Forbes *Exhilarating and timely…Makes the case for a return to Willkie’s thinking about interdependence and international cooperation…By a coincidence, Zipp’s book has appeared amid a global pandemic that has both highlighted the need to transcend nationalism and its intractability. -- Dexter Fergie * New Republic *The Idealist is a powerful book, gorgeously written and consistently insightful. Samuel Zipp uses the 1942 world tour of Wendell Willkie to examine American attitudes toward internationalism, decolonization, and race in the febrile atmosphere of the world’s first truly global conflict. By showing that Willkie’s wartime tour offered a preview of globalization, Zipp challenges now-dominant interpretations of World War II. -- Andrew Preston, author of Sword of the Spirit, Shield of FaithThis deeply researched and wonderfully written book leads us to wonder how the twentieth century might have unfolded if the United States had embraced Wendell Willkie’s ‘new world idea.’ It’s not too late, because Willkie’s wisdom rings through The Idealist and speaks urgently to today’s America. -- Stephen Kinzer, author of All the Shah’s MenThis is a beautifully written, ambitious, confident, and capacious book that does a wonderful job of situating Wendell Willkie and his vision for ‘one world’ in a historical context. Its breadth is truly impressive. The reader has a sense of being a participant on Willkie’s journey, seeing the world as it stood in 1942. An outstanding book. -- Melani McAlister, author of The Kingdom of God Has No BordersZipp’s breathtaking account of Wendell Willkie’s wartime world tour centers on the transformational concept of One World. Tackling Willkie’s idealistic, often maligned push for an independent and profoundly interconnected world, this riveting tale speaks to some of the most pressing concerns of our present age. -- Christopher Nichols, Director, Oregon State University Center for the HumanitiesThis insightful and nuanced portrayal successfully elucidates Willkie’s globalist politics and America’s emergence as a world leader. * Publishers Weekly *Zipp's engrossing book will be of interest to not just historians, but anyone interested in understanding how ordinary Americans responded to the global changes in governance, politics, and culture that took place during these prewar and postwar years. -- Steven P. Rodriguez * New Books Network *

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Book SynopsisWe have long been fascinated with the oceans and sought “to pierce the profundity” of their depths. But the history of marine science also tells us a lot about ourselves. Antony Adler explores the ways in which scientists, politicians, and the public have invoked ocean environments in imagining the fate of humanity and of the planet.Trade ReviewIn his entertaining, readable history of marine science, [Adler] shows how humanity’s fundamental ignorance about the sea has often fed fantastical ideas of it as savior, battlefield, playground, storehouse, angry beast or hapless victim…Left me with a sense of urgency about the ocean’s perilous state…Enlightening. -- Boris Worm * Nature *The best narrative of oceanography’s history that I have ever read, Neptune’s Laboratory elucidates humanity’s relationship with the ocean. Compelling, imaginative, and exceptionally well researched, this book will make a difference in the world by offering insight into the fears and fantasies that forged our understandings of the ocean in the past and how, against mounting environmental challenges, they continue to shape our courses of action. -- Helen Rozwadowski, author of Vast Expanses: A History of the OceansA social and cultural history of how Western societies have, over the last two hundred years, conceptualized the oceans as a place that can be scientifically understood…Thoughtful and well conceived. It communicates a changing understanding and imagining of the oceans… While of obvious interest to scholars of the ‘oceanic turn,’ it should also find a much broader audience among those interested in how the public interacts with science and with the environment, and how these interests feed and are fed by political goals and fears. -- Penelope K. Hardy * British Journal for the History of Science *Neptune’s Laboratory is a major accomplishment. Adler contributes penetrating new insights into marine research and technology from the last two centuries, and examines how that scholarship has shaped scientists’ hopes and fears for the future. The result is a sophisticated, evocative, and highly original approach to subject matter that challenges easy analysis. -- Eric Mills, author of The Fluid Envelope of Our Planet: How the Study of Ocean Currents Became a ScienceThis book presents a remarkable account of the imagined futures that scientists, politicians, explorers, and mariners built around marine environments over two centuries. Taking us through the history of marine sciences from the nineteenth century to the present, Adler argues for a picture of oceanography that takes seriously practice, context, and a profound human engagement with the oceans. Neptune’s Laboratory will appeal to anyone interested in the history of the future. -- Simon Werrett, author of Thrifty Science: Making the Most of Materials in the History of ExperimentAn engaging new book about the history of humanity’s relationship with, and improving understanding of, the ocean…Neptune’s Laboratory is not only about the history of modern marine science but also about how we perceive the ocean—and how that perception has changed over time. -- David Shiffman * Issues in Science and Technology *

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Book SynopsisTrade Review"A powerful history of rupture and change; of technologies no longer in use, once-priceless goods that have lost their value, prominent port cities that have become provincial backwaters, and social worlds that have altered beyond recognition. . . . In Asian Waters offers fascinating glimpses of a world at once strangely familiar and deeply foreign."---Yorim Spoelder, Asian Review of Books"Fascinating. . . . This is a daring and thought-provoking book."---Jonas Rüegg, H-Net Reviews"A tour de force that offers a broad historical and geographic perspective of oceanic interlinkages from Japan to East Africa that evolved long before the arrival of European powers to the macro-region in the sixteenth century."---Cuauhtemoc Villamar, Journal of World History"Tagliacozzo suggests that to appreciate this vast maritime world, we must do away with the blinders that fossilized disciplines have imposed on us. Instead of national geobodies, we should focus on the oceans, where there is that timeless low of commodities, ideas and peoples that national borders cannot stop. . . . This is an excellent, extraordinarily superb, and fun book to read."---Patricio Abinales, Southeast Asian Studies"Eric Tagliacozzo’s latest ambitious work provides an eclectic history of maritime trade and interconnectivities across a vast space extending from the Persian Gulf to the seas around Japan. Though the Indian Ocean and South China Sea garner the greatest attention in this enjoyable work, the sweeping and engaging kaleidoscope of topics covered in Tagliacozzo’s work offers much to historians of the Pacific."---Steven Ivings, Pacific Historical Review"A major addition to the corpus of maritime and oceanic history and thus to global history. . . . Tagliacozzo’s study is exhaustively researched, creatively analyzed, elegantly presented, and makes a major contribution to maritime and global history. It should become a landmark (a lighthouse?) in maritime Asian scholarship."---Stephen Morillo, Asian Review of World Histories"In Asian Waters does not rewrite Indian Ocean history. . . but it is undoubtedly the best stock-taking that we have of the field, in all of its historical, thematic and methodological diversity."---Fahad Ahmad Bishara, Journal of International Maritime History

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Book SynopsisTrade ReviewA gold mine of maritime history... Middleton's Tobacco Coast is credited by some scholars with generating much of today's environmental and historical interest in the Chesapeake Bay, even before James Michener got hold of it. Newport News Daily PressTable of ContentsForewordForeword to the First EditionPart I. Sea and BayChapter 1. Ocean PassageChapter 2. The Great Bay of ChesapeakeChapter 3. Shoals and ShallowsPart II. CommerceChapter 4. The Tobacco TradeChapter 5. British and African TradeChapter 6. American and South-European TradePart III. ShippingChapter 7. Ships and ShipbuildingChapter 8. The Merchant MarineChapter 9. Masters and marinersPart IV. WarfareChapter 10. The Convoy SystemChapter 11. Defense of the BayChapter 12. Prizes and PrivateersPart V. ConclusionChapter 13. ConclusionFootnotesBibliographyAppendicesIndex

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Book SynopsisThis is a history of how the Navy responded-in doctrine, strategy, operations, preparedness, self-awareness, and force structure-to radical changes in political circumstance, technological innovation, and national needs and expectations.Trade Review"A fine book: meticulous, judicious, incisive. It is a book to which the conventional exaggerations—"must" reading, relevant, if you're only going to read one book on the subject, etc.—actually may be said to apply. . . . It is a study of the interactions of technology, bureaucracy, politics and culture, of how an institution adapts, or fails to adapt, to changing conditions. As such, the book belongs on a lot of desks at the Pentagon."—Washington Times"Baer takes what could have been a dry topic—the political history of the modern U.S. Navy—and turns it into interesting reading."—Library Journal"This is clearly one of the two or three most important works in American naval history published in the last decade; it has the potential to become a classic in the field. Well researched and carefully nuanced, it provides a distinctive perspective on the evolving historical relationship between national interest and national politics on the one hand and naval power on the other. Not only is this a significant contribution to scholarship—one that will critically influence how historians and political scientists think about American naval power—it is an enormously readable work. Baer writes beautifully, and he has organized his material effectively. The book is fully accessible to anyone interested in naval history."—Edward Rhodes, Rutgers University"A valuable book that stimulates reflection, reconsideration, and debate."—International History Review"Policy makers will benefit greatly from reading Baer's erudite review of the navy's previous successes and failures in developing strategy. . . . In seeking to educate both the naval and the non-naval communities, Baer admirably fulfills the special obligation of a public historian to convey to several audiences his special understanding of the institution he serves."—The Public HistorianTable of ContentsIntroduction Part I. On the Sea: 1. Sea power and the fleet Navy, 1890-1910 2. The new Navy, 1898-1913 3. Neutrality or readiness? 1913-1917 4. War without Mahan, 1917-1918 5. Parity and proportion, 1919-1922 6. Treaty Navy, 1922-1930 7. Adapt and innovate, 1931-1938 8. Are we ready? 1938-1940 9. Sea control, 1941-1942 10. Strategic offensives, 1943-1944 11. Victory drives, 1944-1945 Part II. From the Sea: 12. Why do we need a navy? 1945-1949 13. Naval strategy, 1950-1954 14. Containment and the Navy, 1952-1960 15. The McNamara years, 1961-1970 16. Disarray, 1970-1980 17. High tide, 1980-1990 Conclusion.

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Book SynopsisIn the late summer of 1984, the author and a group of his archaeology students excavated fragments of Chinese porcelain at the site of a Pomo Indian village a hundred miles north of San Francisco. How did these ceramics, which were more than a hundred years old, find their way to this remote area?Trade Review"A business history focusing on one firm's involvement in a lucrative drug trade at the middle of the 19th century, Layton's work is extremely well conceived, well written, and exhaustively researched. Highly recommended."—Library Journal"An exemplary text that brings together the fields of archaeology and history in stimulating and provocative ways."—Journal of Asian Studies"A fascinating glimpse at a piece of the American past that had been not merely forgotten but in some cases deliberately ignored. . . . An alluring and revealing story."—Washington Post"A fascinating look at a little known slice of American history, filled with dozens of colorful anecdotes."—Booklist"Like a sleuth, Layton was able to uncover the mystery behind a ship that was wrecked off the coast of California in 1850 and the history that got her there. His research is intense, exact, and diligent."—The New England QuarterlyTable of ContentsContents CHAPTER 1 CHAPTER 2 CHAPTER 3 CHAPTER 4 CHAPTER 5 CHAPTER 6 APPENDIX A APPENDIX B APPENDIX C

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Book SynopsisBenjamin Armstrong sets out to take irregular naval warfare out of the shadow of the blue-water battles that dominate naval history. This book, the first historical study of its kind, makes a compelling case for raiding and irregular naval warfare as key elements in the story of American sea power.Trade ReviewArmstrong provides readers with an innovative history of a form of naval strategy often neglected by historians and strategists who focus on big fleets and guerre de course. His pioneering scholarship here is not just interesting naval history but enters into the realm of naval theory and strategy."" - John T. Kuehn, author of America's First General Staff""Armstrong takes the reader on an action-packed journey from the War for Independence to the decades immediately following the War of 1812. In retelling little-known stories of raids, ambushes, and explosive devices, he recasts the U.S. Navy's early history. Small Boats and Daring Men brings irregular operations to the forefront of naval history."" - Kevin D. McCranie, author of Utmost Gallantry: The U.S. and Royal Navies at Sea in the War of 1812|""In this provocative study, Benjamin Armstrong employs the concept of guerre de razzia in order to highlight the prevalence of American raiding operations during the Age of Sail. Through carefully chosen studies, he shows how U.S. Navy forces frequently employed what he calls ""naval irregular warfare"" to pursue national goals."" - Craig L. Symonds, Ernest J. King Professor, U.S. Naval War College and author of A Concise History of the U.S. Navy""Those with a military mindset should enjoy the analysis of the strategic theory of guerre de razza. Historians of the navy, technology and early American diplomacy should also find something in the book to pique their interest. Maritime historians, in general, should find the topic enlightening. Academically, the book might be appealing as a text for an upper level or graduate course. Readers who like true adventure, and many of the raiding expeditions are, to say the least, adventurous, will be fascinated by the audaciousness of the mariners of yore in small boats. It would be nice if a book of this quality of scholarship obtained an audience beyond a naval/maritime readership."" - The Northern Mariner/Le marin du nord

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Book SynopsisTakes irregular naval warfare out of the shadow of the blue-water battles that dominate naval history. This book, the first historical study of its kind, makes a compelling case for raiding and irregular naval warfare as key elements in the story of American sea power.Trade ReviewArmstrong provides readers with an innovative history of a form of naval strategy often neglected by historians and strategists who focus on big fleets and guerre de course. His pioneering scholarship here is not just interesting naval history but enters into the realm of naval theory and strategy." - John T. Kuehn, author of America's First General Staff"Armstrong takes the reader on an action-packed journey from the War for Independence to the decades immediately following the War of 1812. In retelling little-known stories of raids, ambushes, and explosive devices, he recasts the U.S. Navy's early history. Small Boats and Daring Menbrings irregular operations to the forefront of naval history." - Kevin D. McCranie, author of Utmost Gallantry: The U.S. and Royal Navies at Sea in the War of 1812"In this provocative study, Benjamin Armstrong employs the concept of guerre de razzia in order to highlight the prevalence of American raiding operations during the Age of Sail. Through carefully chosen studies, he shows how U.S. Navy forces frequently employed what he calls 'naval irregular warfare' to pursue national goals."—Craig L.Symonds, Ernest J. King Professor, U.S. Naval War College and author of A Concise History of the U.S. Navy"Those with a military mindset should enjoy the analysis of the strategic theory of guerre de razza. Historians of the navy, technology and early American diplomacy should also find something in the book to pique their interest. Maritime historians, in general, should find the topic enlightening. Academically, the book might be appealing as a text for an upper level or graduate course. Readers who like true adventure, and many of the raiding expeditions are, to say the least, adventurous, will be fascinated by the audaciousness of the mariners of yore in small boats. It would be nice if a book of this quality of scholarship obtained an audience beyond a naval/maritime readership."—The Northern Mariner/Le marin du nord

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Book SynopsisLong before the rise of New World slavery, West Africans were adept swimmers, divers, canoe makers, and canoeists. They lived along riverbanks, near lakes, or close to the ocean. In those waterways, they became proficient in diverse maritime skills, while incorporating water and aquatics into spiritual understandings of the world. Transported to the Americas, slaves carried with them these West African skills and cultural values. Indeed, according to Kevin Dawson''s examination of water culture in the African diaspora, the aquatic abilities of people of African descent often surpassed those of Europeans and their descendants from the age of discovery until well into the nineteenth century.As Dawson argues, histories of slavery have largely chronicled the fields of the New World, whether tobacco, sugar, indigo, rice, or cotton. However, most plantations were located near waterways to facilitate the transportation of goods to market, and large numbers of agricultural slaves had Trade Review"Kevin Dawson's masterly synthesis goes beyond filling a gap in maritime history: it reconfirms and expands a discourse on maritime traditions of Africans at home and abroad, from the sixteenth to the nineteenth centuries." * The International Journal of Maritime History *"This is an important book in a number of ways. It displays the ways many enslaved Africans used the knowledge they brought with them to expand the space available to them. It gives us a picture of how aspects of slavery in one of the most coercive slave societies ever created were negotiated. It is also a contribution to aquatic history and culture informed by Kevin Dawson's passion for and understanding of aquatic life. In making his arguments, Dawson uses a wide range of sources and uses them well. Most important, he gives us a picture of those enslaved as agents, who used their knowledge and their skills to push the boundaries of their enslavement." * Early American Literature *"Kevin Dawson's Undercurrents of Power is important. More than perhaps any study in recent memory, it brings the existence, value, and meaning of water in the African diaspora to the forefront of Atlantic cultural, social, and economic development. In a broad,sweeping narrative, Dawson covers remarkable ground, crisscrossing the Atlantic as he draws together hundreds of examples of how water defined the pre-slavery lives of Africans forced into the Atlantic slave trade and how it helped diverse peoples and cultures identify themselves, individually and collectively, in the whirlwind and trauma of enslavement. The work explores the complexities of honor, warfare, social status, youth, sex, technology, and leisure and how each interacted with, and indeed structured itself around, water and aquatic spaces." * The Journal of Southern History *"Stunning . . . Undercurrents of Power brings to light the various aquatic traditions of Africans and Diasporans working, cultivating, and negotiating the riparian, oceanic, lake, and swamp biomes both in the context of Africa and in the environments they encountered throughout the Atlantic and into the Americas . . . In the process of opening various kinds of waterscapes to historical analysis, Dawson fundamentally reimagines the cultural dynamics shaping the Americas." * Black Perspectives *"Undercurrents of Power is a significant intervention into the fields of Early Vast America, African Diaspora, African American, and Caribbean histories. By focusing on African aquatic cultural and material contributions, Dawson rescues African maritime narratives in the early Atlantic World, which have been grossly ignored or silenced. It is a must-read for scholars and graduate students in these respective fields. The prose is captivating and clear." * Journal of Early American History *"Kevin Dawson offers the remarkable untold history of the significance of aquatic culture in the African diaspora. Undercurrents of Power opens up a new and exciting aspect of slaves' experience, providing a crucially important piece of the history of slave life and labor in the Americas." * James Sidbury, Rice University *Table of ContentsIntroduction: Waterscapes of the African Diaspora PART I. SWIMMING CULTURE Chapter 1. Atlantic African Aquatic Cultures: A Cross-Cultural Comparison Chapter 2. Cultural Meanings of Recreational Swimming and Surfing Chapter 3. Aquatic Sports and Performance Rituals: Gender, Bravery, and Honor Chapter 4. History from Below: Enslaved Underwater Divers Chapter 5. Undercurrents of Power: Challenging Racial Hierarchies from Below PART II. CANOE CULTURE Chapter 6. African Canoe-Makers: Constructing Floating Cultures Chapter 7. Mountains Divide and Rivers Unite: Atlantic African Canoemen Chapter 8. Maritime Continuities: African Canoes on New World Waters Chapter 9. The Floating Economies of Slaves and Slaveholders Chapter 10. Sacred Vessels, Sacred Waters: The Cultural Meanings of Dugout Canoes Chapter 11. A World Afloat: Mobile Slave Communities Chapter 12. The Watermen's Song: Canoemen's Aural Waterscapes Conclusion. A Sea Change in Atlantic History Epilogue Notes Index Acknowledgments

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Book SynopsisExamining excavated underwater ""treasure sites"" and terrestrial pirate lairs found off the coast of Madagascar, throughout the Caribbean, and within the United States, this book explores the romanticized ""Golden Age of Piracy,"" and the ""gentleman pirate"" Jean Lafitte.Trade ReviewThe first comprehensive, scholarly look at the artifactual evidence of real pirates, recovered at both shipwrecks and known pirate bases. - Archaeology Magazine ""The reader unused to digesting professional publications will, pardon the pun, sail through this book as if it were a collection of novellas! This is the definitive book on pirates and the research being done to dispel all of the fables."" - Dirtbrothers.org

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Book SynopsisAddresses the ways maritime archaeologists have engaged citizen scientists, presenting examples of projects and organisations that have involved volunteers in the important work of gathering and processing data.

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Book SynopsisThe USS Saginaw was a Civil War gunboat that served in Pacific and Asian waters between 1860 and 1870. In 1870, the ship sank at one of the world’s most remote coral reefs. This narrative provides fresh insights and a vivid retelling of a classic naval shipwreck.Trade ReviewAn epic shipwreck tale. Sacrifice and heroism are recounted in a comprehensive study of a ship that embodied America's role in the nineteenth-century Pacific as Yankee enterprise helped open Asia to trade. Well-researched, well-written, this book also takes readers for the first time intoSaginaw's long-lost grave beneath the sea." - James P. Delgado, president, The Institute of Nautical Archaeology"An impressive study of a naval vessel from construction to destruction." - William Still Jr., author of Crisis at Sea

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Book SynopsisTells the story of the greatest shipwreck disaster in the history of the Cayman Islands. The story has been passed through generations for over two centuries. Details vary depending on who is doing the telling, but all refer to this momentous maritime event as the Wreck of the Ten Sail.Trade ReviewCayman's 1794 Wreck of the Ten Sail serves as a robust example of unrelenting and careful historical archaeological research that tells a dramatic, true story that represents part of an island nation's past brought into the present." - Roger C. Smith, author of The Maritime Heritage of the Cayman Islands and Ships of Exploration in the Age of ColumbusTable of Contents List of Illustrations Preface Acknowledgments Chapter 1. Ship Ashore! Lost, but Not Forgotten Chapter 2. Hazard, Landmark, Food: A Hidden Mountain Chapter 3. L'Inconstante: A Place in the Navy Chapter 4. France's Saint-Domingue Campaign: The Best and the Worst of Times Chapter 5. The Prize: A Ship by Another Name Chapter 6. Great Britain's Convert Convoy: Duty versus Profit Chapter 7. The Wreck of the Ten Sail: Breakers Ahead, Close to Us! Chapter 8. What Remains: Links to the Past Conclusion Appendix A. Inventory of L'Inconstante Appendix B. Condemnation of L'Inconstante Appendix C. Biographical Sketch of John Lawford Appendix D. Data from the Muster Table of HMS Convert Appendix E. Ships in the Convert Convoy, 1794 Appendix F. Salvage Account of HMS Convert Notes Bibliography Index

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Book SynopsisBrings together three intertwined stories documenting the US Navy’s strategic and materiel evolution following the end of the Civil War through the First World War. These incidents had lasting consequences for how the navy would modernize itself throughout the rest of the twentieth century.

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Book SynopsisOceania is characterized by thousands of islands and archipelagoes amidst the vast expanse of the Pacific. This book offers a study of ocean-people interaction in the region from 1770 to 1870.Trade ReviewThis well-researched and beautifully written monograph opens a window in time and space. Its emphasis on the dynamics [of marine ecosystems] is convincing and serves to falsify the notion of a frozen 'tradition' as well as of a predictable maritime environment. - Anthropological Quarterly ""D'Arcy displays range and agility rare in a young scholar.... This book is daring, innovative, and should command very broad attention."" - International Journal of Maritime History ""A superb, richly textured narrative of cultural seascapes across Remote Oceania."" - Oceania

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Book SynopsisConventional portrayals of early Ryukyu are based on official histories written between 1650 and 1750. Taking an interdisciplinary approach, Gregory Smits makes use of scholarship in archaeology and anthropology and leverages unconventional sources such as the Omoro sshi (ancient songs) to present a fundamental rethinking of early Ryukyu.

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Book SynopsisIn 1998, the Belitung, a ninth-century western Indian Ocean-style vessel, was discovered in Indonesian waters. In this moving and thought-provoking reflection of underwater cultural heritage management, Natali Pearson reveals valuable new information about the Belitung salvage.

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Book Synopsis

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Book SynopsisLos Angeles Times Book Prize Finalist in History A dramatic work of historical detection illuminating one of the most significant—and long forgotten—Supreme Court cases in American history.Trade Review"In Bryant’s gripping telling, the moral contradictions of the time are laid bare…. Carefully researched, beautifully crafted, Dark Places—the title comes, ominously but evocatively, from Joseph Conrad’s Heart of Darkness—is one of the very few books that delivers on the promiscuous promise to employ an obscure episode to offer new insights on a well-trod byway of history." -- David M. Shribman - Boston Globe"Illuminating…. Fascinating…." -- David Reynolds - Wall Street Journal"Bryant masterfully narrates the incredible machinations revolving around the eventual case, which would drag on for seven years, and take a considerable toll on the captives awaiting a decision…. Epic in scope, providing rich portraits of life at sea and trade in the Atlantic world, slavery and its hazards in the malaria-ridden South, and the tension between the ethical and financial interests of a slew of chummy Southern gentlemen adjudicating the case, Dark Places of the Earth is an invaluable contribution to the understanding of antebellum America." -- Bobbi Booker - Philadelphia Tribune"An eye-opening account of a little-known (yet horrifying) episode in American history…. In Dark Places of the Earth, Bryant has salvaged the history of an era when black lives mattered to slavers only as profit and the dead were thrown to the sharks." -- Adam Rothman - Washington Independent Review of Books"From its poetic title to its concluding sentence, Dark Places of the Earth spins a riveting yarn, using the vexed voyage of the slave ship Antelope to illuminate a profound moment in American history. Vividly drawn characters and courtroom drama make this narrative history of a high order." -- Marcus Rediker, author of The Amistad Rebellion"In this fascinating and engagingly written study, Jonathan M. Bryant illuminates a largely forgotten—but highly significant—episode in American legal history. Based on prodigious and meticulous research, Dark Places of the Earth will appeal to general readers and scholars alike. An important, original book." -- Douglas R. Egerton, author of The Wars of Reconstruction: The Brief, Violent History of America's Most Progressive Era"Jonathan Bryant sheds new and revealing light on a dark chapter in the history of American slavery, and on a Supreme Court decision that, despite its faults, deserves to be better known." -- Brian McGinty, author of Lincoln's Greatest Case"Bryant presents a broadened picture of the transatlantic slave trade while illuminating a legal battle with huge moral implications." -- Barbara Hoffert - Library Journal"A richly documented work that restores the Antelope to its central place in the long, grim history of the Atlantic slave trade." -- Kirkus Reviews"Detailed and fascinating account…. This is a superb examination of an obscure but important episode in the struggle against slavery." -- Jay Freeman - Booklist, Starred review"[Bryant] meticulously unwinds the years-long, complex legal history that finally led to the case being heard by the six justices of John Marshall's Supreme Court, four of whom were slave owners…. From the West African shores to Georgia, Washington, D.C., and, finally Liberia, Bryant's riveting history of this case and these slaves is a remarkable one." -- Tom Lavoie - Shelf Awareness

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Book SynopsisIntertidal History in Island Southeast Asia shows the vital part maritime Southeast Asians played in struggles against domination of the seventeenth-century spice trade by local and European rivals. Looking beyond the narrative of competing mercantile empires, it draws on European and Southeast Asian sources to illustrate Sama sea people''s alliances and intermarriage with the sultanate of Makassar and the Bugis realm of Boné. Contrasting with later portrayals of the Sama as stateless pirates and sea gypsies, this history of shifting political and interethnic ties among the people of Sulawesi's littorals and its land-based realms, along with their shared interests on distant coasts, exemplifies how regional maritime dynamics interacted with social and political worlds above the high-water mark.Trade ReviewGaynor has provided an insightful consideration of the dynamics of power, trade, and social relations that points historians to new understandings of societies and ecosystems that usually fall beyond the shore of the academic gaze.... Gaynor weaves a complex depiction of histories and peoples that enlightens the reader not only on this complex ecological land- and seascape, but also on social dynamics that usually fall outside traditional categories of the state and economics in world history.... Intertidal History in Island Southeast Asia is an excellent book, as it is securely rooted, or in this case anchored, in the littoral.... The result is a work that provides a cogent example of the importance of considering the contributions of a wide range of peoples to the construction of the state, as well as of how this can be done by thoroughly scouring the archives for sources in a variety of languages, and by living among and appreciating those peoples' cultures in order to hear the echoes of their pasts that still resonate. * The American Historical Review *[Gaynor] provides a useful reminder that outsiders were not necessarily the leading figures in the maritime life of this region.... The product of extensive research and thought, this book is valuable for scholars of Southeast Asia and its rich maritime life. Summing Up: Recommended. Graduate students, faculty, specialists. * Choice *This wonderful book adds to Gaynor's contribution to approaching encounters as alliances as well as confrontations, to highlight the historical coherence and continuity that encounters offer in addition to the fragmentation. Gaynor's intimate engagement with the cultures of the Sulawesi seas, and Tiworo in particular, offers a refreshing contrast to the common way of seeing Sama peoples. * Bijdragen tot de taal-, land- en volkenkunde *

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Book SynopsisJohn Martin (1789-1869) was a London-based, Edinburgh-educated physician interested in anthropological matters. This comprehensive account of Tongan Society is his only book. He was inspired to write it by a chance encounter with its subject, William Mariner (1791-1853) who spent four years (1806-1810) in Tonga, in the South Pacific, at a time before any substantial European influence disturbed or modified that society. Mariner, an extraordinarily mature and perceptive youth, became thoroughly imbued with Tongan language and culture as the adopted son of the most powerful chief in Tonga. Martin's intelligent engagement with Mariner resulted in a compelling narrative and a comprehensive account of Tongan society which, together with the accompanying grammar and vocabulary, became a classic. Often celebrated as an extraordinary real-life adventure story, it is a pioneering work of anthropology, and for 200 years it has been a primary and authoritative source for research into Tongan history and culture.Table of ContentsMartin’s Preface / Martin’s Introduction / Chapter 1 / Chapter 2 / Chapter 3 / Chapter 4 / Chapter 5 / Chapter 6 / Chapter 7 / Chapter 8 / Chapter 9 / Chapter 10 / Chapter 11 / Chapter 12 / Chapter 13 / Chapter 14 / Chapter 15 / Chapter 16 / Chapter 17 / Chapter 18 / Chapter 19 / Chapter 20 / Chapter 21 / Chapter 22 / Chapter 23 Surgical Skill of the Tonga Islanders / Appendix : A Grammar and Vocabulary / Summary of Grammar Review / Bibliography / Index

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Book SynopsisHans Staden's sixteenth-century account of shipwreck and captivity by the Tupinamba Indians of Brazil was an early modern bestseller. This title presents a retelling of the German sailor's eyewitness account, showing both why it was so popular at the time and why it remains an important tool for understanding the opening of the Atlantic world.Trade ReviewThis work has a broad appeal and should be of immediate interest to a wide variety of scholars and students. One of its best features is that it is readable while also very scholarly... This enjoyable text could be used very successfully with graduate students or undergraduates in an upper-division class. -- Timothy J. Coates The Americas The Return of Hans Staden is a useful book for students, a good way to acquire a first acquaintance with the worlds of a sixteenth-century Landsknecht and German conquistador on both side of the Atlantic. -- Bernd J.W. Ludke German History Elegant... intriguing. -- Mary Lindemann The Coordinating Council for Women in History Scholars of early images of the Americas and of cultural encounters, captivity, and oceanic expansion will find the material engaging. -- Surekha Davies William and Mary QuarterlyTable of ContentsList of IllustrationsAcknowledgmentsA Note on Spelling and CitationIntroduction1. Staden Goes to Sea2. The Lying Captive3. The Traveler Returns4. Staden's ImagesEpilogueNotesBibliographyIndex

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Book SynopsisOriginal, comprehensive, and compelling, The Treasure of the San Jose separates popular myth from history and sheds light on the human lives associated with a "treasureship.Trade ReviewNot just another maritime disaster drama, this history of a Spanish galleon sunk by the English in 1708 offers fascinating glimpses into Spain's American empire... By plumbing the dashed hopes of those invested in the success of the San Jose, Phillips endows her narrative with a foreboding poignancy. Booklist 2007 Her work proceeds, even with its scholarship, to retain the basic magic of the tale of the magnificent galleon under the command of the Count of Casa Alegrre and manned by 600 souls, all still resting untouched and waiting. Library Journal (starred review) 2007 Phillips' book does much to dispel longstanding myths and provides a close look at maritime practices as well as the difficulties posed by allowing memory to stand in for fact... Certainly the most fascinating portion of the book was Phillips minute description of the battle that resulted in the loss of the San Jose. PhiloBiblos 2007 It sounds like the title of a boy's own adventure tale or an Erroll Flynn movie, and rightly so: The Treasure of San Jose has a swashbuckling spirit and contains all the elements for an old-fashioned romance: sea battles, suave adventurers and sunken treasure. But it also displays the kind of detail and precision that comes from shrewdly plundered archives. Carla Rahn Phillips is clearly an assiduous historian with an eye for an extraordinary story. Wall Street Journal 2007 Phillips' impeccable scholarship, detailed reporting, and careful analysis will appeal primarily to students of Spanish history and naval affairs. -- Margaret A. Koger Magill Book Reviews 2008 A book that will please and reward all students of Spanish imperial and maritime history. -- N.A.M. Rodger International Journal of Maritime History 2007 A well-written and well-researched book which can be effectively read by both scholar and novice. -- John Leiby Hispanic American Historical Review 2008 For Carla Rahn Phillips, the sinking of the San Jose is significant beyond the terrible tragedy and can be used as a lens to view complex themes in a changing Spanish Empire... This is a very well-written, analytical study based on extensive fresh archival research. -- Christon I. Archer American Historical Review 2009 The author has used this wealth of documents to write a marvellous book, fascinating from beginning to end. -- Jaap de Moor The Northern Mariner 2007 A penetrating micro-study of the Spanish monarchy during the conflict over the Spanish succession... The human element is never forgotten as she probes the lives and careers not only of viceroys, but of lesser officials and soldiers, and even the humblest seamen and their families. -- Jerzy Lukowski Bulletin of Latin American Research 2009 A first-rate book written by an experienced historian at the height of her career. -- James A. Lewis ItinerarioTable of ContentsAcknowledgmentsList of AbbreviationsIntroduction1. The Last Galleons2. Commanders of the Fleet3. The Men of the San José4. A Tale of Two Viceroys, One Captain General,and a World at War5. The Last Voyage of the San José6. After the BattlePostscriptAppendix 1: The Spanish and English Calendars in 1708Appendix 2: Treasure Registered on the San Joaquín in 1712NotesBibliographyIndex

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Book SynopsisReaders who love history and stories of exploration on the high seas will devour this gripping tale.Trade ReviewAlthough part of US cultural and economic history, the role of long-distance sea trade in developing the nation's character and global outlook in the early national period has not been discussed until now. The book is informative and entertaining, a rare combination. Highly recommended. Choice Often gripping and always engaging. True Yankees makes a very real and highly insightful contribution to our understanding of early America's place within the Pacific world. Journal of Pacific History An excellent book contributing valuable information on America's early story. Anyone interested in the birth of our nation and how we entered into the world of commerce will find this a detailed resource. Pirates and Privateers An insightful, well-documented, and immensely significant work for the field of early American history. True Yankees is an excellent and highly important study. Naval Historical Foundation A valuable contribution to our understanding of America's early encounters with the world. American Studies Educational, interesting, cleverly organized, and easy to read. Morrison presents an aspect of American seafaring and trading history that is commonly overlooked, yet still very significant. The Northern Mariner Morrison discerns the beginnings of an American identity in an earlier period of American history by focusing more on the sea than the land through the maritime expansion outwards of the post-Revolutionary and ante-bellum early United States republic. What helps to give the book pace and human engagement is the way in which it is largely based around the lives and travels of a number of key individuals representing different periods and dimensions of what it meant to be what the book's title terms a 'true Yankee.' Bulletin of the Pacific Circle Morrison's book is important and impressive. Its point is accurate and significant. It is a work of skillful research, analysis and vision, as well as one that tells an under-appreciated story. Sea HistoryTable of ContentsAcknowledgmentsIntroductionthe first generation1. Samuel Shaw's Polite Reception, 1784–1794First Interlude2. Amasa Delano Opens the Great South Sea, 1790–1820Second Interlude3. Edmund Fanning's "Voyages Round the World," 1792–1833Third Interludethe second generationHarriett Low in Manila and Macao, 1829–1834Fourth InterludeRobert Bennet Forbes and the First Opium War, 1838–1840PostscriptNotesIndex

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Book SynopsisHands-on science in the Age of Exploration. Winner of the John Lyman Book Award in Naval and Maritime Science and Technology by the North American Society for Oceanic History and the Leo Gershoy Prize by the American Historical AssociationThroughout the Age of Exploration, European maritime communities bent on colonial and commercial expansion embraced the complex mechanics of celestial navigation. They developed schools, textbooks, and instruments to teach the new mathematical techniques to sailors. As these experts debated the value of theory and practice, memory and mathematics, they created hybrid models that would have a lasting impact on applied science. In Sailing School, a richly illustrated comparative study of this transformative period, Margaret E. Schotte charts more than two hundred years of navigational history as she investigates how mariners solved the challenges of navigating beyond sight of land. She begins by outlining the influential sixteenth-century Iberian modeTrade ReviewAs voyages stretched into open ocean, mathematical expertise in celestial navigation became essential. Hands-on instruction with instruments remained key, but as historian Margaret Schotte reveals in this deft, scholarly chronicle, the nautical manual soon came into its own.—Barbara Kiser, NatureSailing School deploys compelling printed images and manuscript notations to reconstruct the practice of learning, a particularly difficult feat for a phenomenon that takes place in an intangible mental realm. In fusing the history of learning and print with that of navigation, Schotte shows how deep transformations in public intellectual culture built on themselves.—Sarah Kinkel, Times Higher EducationSchotte, in combination with Johns Hopkins University Press, has produced a beautifully illustrated, perceptively argued, well-written monograph that enhances historical understandings of not just early modern navigation, but also of early modern technical education and the lived experience of the pre-industrial maritime world. Sailing School exemplifies the kind of original work that close archival research can yield and will be a definitive work on its subject for years to come.—Timothy S. Wolters, Canadian Journal of Netherlandic Studies[A] valuable academic study. Sailing School is well-written with copious documentation.—James C. Hamilton, Captain Cook SocietySailing School provides us with a technically researched history of navigational pedagogy with enough captivating prose to transport the reader into the decisions and methods of educators in classrooms from past centuries . . . Schotte has produced an exceptional history of education for a snapshot of time within a highly technical field.—Darrell J. Glaser, United States Naval Academy, EH.NetSailing School is and extremely informative look into the practice and transmission of navigational knowledge in Europe during the scientific revolution, and how text helped to codify and communicate that information to new practitioners.—Kendra Lawrence, East Carolina University, Nautical Research JournalSchotte's book is an important contribution to maritime history and absolutely should be on the shelf of all interested in the details of seafaring life in the age of sail, as well as those studying Europe's centuries of expansion and conquest. I strongly recommend this book accordingly.—Ian Yeates, The Northern MarinerIt is immediately clear that Schotte knows how to draw readers into sweeping historic events, enriching the story with detail and accuracy to inspire awe . . . From technical advancements to highly charged personal stories, Schotte's book is a fascinating read.—Megan Mueller, yFile - York University's NewsIt is the immediacy of its subject matter that makes Sailing School so richly fascinating . . . Multinational in its approach, it offers insights into what was distinctive about pedagogy and practice in England, Spain, France and the Netherlands, and analysis of the extent to which knowledge and expertise were shared and transferred – not least through the medium of print. What one 17th-century teacher called 'This Art of Traversing and Caravanning over Neptune's Vast Dominions' has found in Schotte a gifted, lucid and illuminating chronicler.—Mathew Lyons, Literary ReviewThe history of getting from A to B is usually told as the history of instruments . . . But Margaret Schotte, in her excellent Sailing School, argues convincingly that the history of how ships, people, and goods move across vast distances must also be, perhaps quite centrally, a history of the book. Sailing School is a history of how early modern navigators learned to become navigators, and it holds important lessons for early modern knowledge as a whole.—William Rankin, Yale University, Isis: A Journal of the History of Science SocietySailing School, with its comparative analysis of academic traditions and training practices across Europe, is a magnificent contribution in the fields of History, History of Education, Pedagogy, Sociology, and Science in general. Margaret Schotte shows that "navigators were not born but made", enriching with new data and interpretations the history of knowledge in the Early Modern period. With a rigorous investigation and a brilliant narrative, she brings the European nautical science of the 16th and 17th centuries directly into the Scientific Revolution.—Silvana Munzi, RUTTER Book ReviewSchotte's book is a very important and highly relevant book for all interested in the technologies of the seas in the early modern period.—Hakon With Andersen, Norwegian University of Science and Technology, Technology and CultureTable of ContentsAcknowledgmentsEditorial PracticesIntroductionPrologue. A Model Education—Seville, ca. 1552Chapter One. From the Water to the Writing Book—Amsterdam, ca.Chapter Two. "By the Shortest Path": Developing Mathematical Rules—Dieppe, 1675Chapter Three. Hands-On Theory along the Thames—London, 1683Chapter Four. Paper Sailors, Classroom Lessons—The Netherlands, ca. 1710Chapter Five. Lieutenant Riou Is Put to the Test—The Southern Indian Ocean, 1789Epilogue. Sailing by the Book, ca. 1800GlossaryNotesBibliographyIndex

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Book SynopsisWhat did it takelogistically and operationallyfor the small and underfunded US Navy to face the battle-hardened Royal Navy in the War of 1812? Find out in this book, the magnum opus of one of the deans of American naval history. When the War of 1812 broke out, the newly formed and cash-strapped United States faced Great Britain, the world's foremost sea power, with a navy that had largely fallen into disrepair and neglect. In this riveting book, William S. Dudley presents the most complete history of the inner workings of the US Navy Department during the conflict, which lasted until 1815. What did it take, he asks, for the US Navy to build, fit-out, man, provision, and send fighting ships to sea for extended periods of time during the War of 1812?When the British blockade of 181314 severely constrained American sea trade, reducing the government's income and closing down access to American seaports, the navy was forced to innovate: to make improvements through reforms, to redeploy pTrade ReviewInside the US Navy of 1812-1815 serves a vital function, illuminating an aspect of the war that is often glossed over in other studies. Dudley makes a compelling and engaging argument for the importance of administration and logistics, which, in turn, makes this book an invaluable resource for anyone interested in the second war between the United States and Great Britain.—Cindy Vallar, Pirates and Privateers: The History of Martime PiracyInside the US Navy of 1812–1815 is an excellent resource. In addition, this book is essential reading for understanding this chapter in the U.S. Navy's evolution from the Continental Navy of the 18th century to the global power of the 21st century.— William J. Prom, U.S Naval InstituteWilliam S. Dudley has focused his career on the early history of the American Navy. His latest book, Inside the US Navy 1812-1815, is the product of ten years of effort, resulting in an essential volume.—Laurence Kerr, Sea HistoryIn this critical new assessment, William Dudley, Director of the US Naval Historical Centre between 1995 and 2004 and founding editor of the essential The Naval War of 1812: A Documentary History, addresses the maritime dimension of a conflict that has long been at the centre of American naval identity, as visitors to the Naval Academy at Annapolis will have observed.—Andrew Lambert, King's College London, Northern Mariner/Le marin du nordInside the U.S. Navy will stand for many years as the authoritative source on the war at sea and on inland rivers and lakes. Military, maritime, and naval historians as well as historians of technology and the Early Republic will find this an indispensable reference work.—Jason W. Smith, Southern Connecticut University, Nautical Research JournalTable of ContentsList of Figures, Maps, and TablesPreface AcknowledgmentsChapter One. The Resources for Naval WarChapter Two. Paul Hamilton's Ordeal: The Onset of War, 1809–1812Chapter Three. William Jones's Challenge: A Two-Front Naval WarChapter Four. From Lake Erie to Lake HuronChapter Five. Sailors, Privateers, and MunitionsChapter Six. The British Blockade of 1813–1814Chapter Seven. Managing the Navy DepartmentChapter Eight. Naval Innovation and InventionsChapter Nine. Chauncey's War on Lake OntarioChapter Ten. Macdonough's War on Lake ChamplainChapter Eleven. In Defense of the Chesapeake BayChapter Twelve. Hostilities in the Seaboard SouthChapter Thirteen. Sailors' Life and WorkChapter Fourteen. War Finance and the BlockadeChapter Fifteen. Renewal of the US NavyNotesIndex

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Book SynopsisWhen Newfoundland entered the Canadian Confederation in 1949, it was hoped it would promote greater unity between the Maritime provinces, as Term 29 of the Newfoundland Act explicitly linked the region's economic and political fortunes. On the surface, the union seemed like an unprecedented opportunity to resurrect the regional spirit of the Maritime Rights movement of the 1920s, which advocated a cooperative approach to addressing regional underdevelopment. However, Newfoundland's arrival did little at first to bring about a comprehensive Atlantic Canadian regionalism.Inventing Atlantic Canada is the first book to analyse the reaction of the Maritime provinces to Newfoundland's entry into Confederation. Drawing on editorials,government documents, and political papers, Corey Slumkoski examines how each Maritime province used the addition of a new provincial cousin to fight underdevelopment. Slumkoski also details the rise of regional cooperation characterized byTable of ContentsIntroduction 1. Newfoundland-Maritime Connections from Colonization to Confederation 2. A Province Divided: Nova Scotia and Newfoundland's Entry into Confederation 3. "... both islands would benefit": Prince Edward Island and 4. Newfoundland's Entry into Confederation 5. "... for the general expansion of the economy ...": New Brunswick and 6. Newfoundland's Entry into Confederation 7. "...preaching a dangerous gospel": Regional Union and Newfoundland in the 1940s Epilogue Bibliography

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Book SynopsisIt began as a small, slow, and unadorned sailing vessel - in a word, ordinary. Later, it was a weary workhorse in the age of steam. But the story of the Edwin Fox reveals how an everyday merchant ship drew together a changing world and its people in an age of rising empires, economic transformation, and social change.

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Book SynopsisIn The Liberty to Take Fish, Thomas Blake Earle offers an incisive and nuanced history of the long American Revolution, describing how aspirations to political freedom coupled with the economic imperatives of commercial fishing roiled relations between the young United States and powerful Great Britain. The American Revolution left the United States with the liberty to take fish from the waters of the North Atlantic. Indispensable to the economic health of the new nation, the cod fisheries of the Grand Banks, the Bay of Fundy, and the Gulf of St. Lawrence quickly became symbols of American independence in an Atlantic world dominated by Great Britain. The fisheries issue was a near-constant concern in American statecraft that impinged upon everything, from Anglo-American relations, to the operation of American federalism, and even to the nature of the marine environment. Earle explores the relationship between the fisheries and the state through the Civil W

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Book SynopsisA documentary drawn from testimony at the Coast Guard’s official inquiry looks anew at one of the most storied, and mysterious, shipwrecks in American history The sinking of the Edmund Fitzgerald is one of the most famous shipwreck stories in Great Lakes history. It is also one of maritime lore’s great mysteries, the details of its disappearance as obscure now as on that fateful November day in 1975. The investigation into the wreck, resulting in a controversial final report, generated more than 3,000 pages of documentation, a mere fraction of which has been made available to the public. In The Trial of the Edmund Fitzgerald, Michael Schumacher mines this rich resource to produce the first-ever documentary account, a companion to his popular narrative Mighty Fitz: The Sinking of the Edmund Fitzgerald. In the words of search and rescue personnel, ship designers and inspectors, scientists and naval engineers, former crewmen of the Fitz and the Arthur M. Anderson (the nearby ore carrier that captured the damaged vessel’s last communications), The Trial of the Edmund Fitzgerald recreates the doomed ore boat’s final minutes, the suspense of the search and rescue operations, and the drama of the subsequent Coast Guard inquiry. From the Anderson’s captain and first mate we hear reports of the Fitzgerald taking on water in the fierce storm near Michipicoten and Caribou Islands, losing its radar, and stating, finally, famously, “We are holding our own.” We follow the investigation, the speculation, and expert testimony to a problematic conclusion—countered by an alternate theory that the Anderson’s captain maintained to his dying day.By declaring the Edmund Fitzgerald an official gravesite, Canada closed the wreck to further exploration. But here the exploration continues, providing a unique, and uniquely enlightening, perspective on this unforgettable episode in America’s maritime history.Trade Review"This was a very eye-opening read. Among the many hundreds of Great Lakes maritime books, I am not aware of any writers using the words of witnesses and participants in such a significant way. Michael Schumacher did an amazing job culling through all the testimony and then organizing and presenting the words of others in an understandable fashion with enough of his own interjection to link the testimony together. And it is ingenious how he encourages and then provides the readers with just the right amount of key testimony to be able to serve as juror and make their own determination of what caused this massive ship to sink. Well done!"—Valerie van Heest, maritime historian and author"Thanks to The Trial of the Edmund Fitzgerald, readers are privy to the thoughts of crew members of other ships, not to mention ship designers, inspectors, naval engineers and search & rescue personnel, all of whom provided their perspective to investigators in the wake of the accident."—Failure Magazine"If you think you have read everything there is that’s worth reading on the Fitzgerald, think again. Once you start reading, it will be hard to put down."—Detroit Marine Historian"Schumacher has arranged the testimony so that it reads like a well organized and engrossing narrative and culminates with the report of the two boards and a Lake Carriers' Association Letter of Dissent."—Michigan in Books"A definitive account of a tragic story that has made its way into Canadian folklore."—Literary Review of Canada

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Book SynopsisShipwreck stories from along Minnesota’s north shore of Lake Superior and Isle Royale Against the backdrop of the extraordinary history of Great Lakes shipping, Too Much Sea for Their Decks chronicles shipwrecked schooners, wooden freighters, early steel-hulled steamers, whalebacks, and bulk carriers—some well-known, some unknown or forgotten—all lost in the frigid waters of Lake Superior.Included are compelling accounts of vessels destined for infamy, such as that of the Stranger, a slender wooden schooner swallowed by the lake in 1875, the sailors’ bodies never recovered nor the wreckage ever found; an account of the whaleback Wilson, rammed by a large commercial freighter in broad daylight and in calm seas, sinking before many on board could escape; and the mysterious loss of the Kamloops, a package freighter that went down in a storm and whose sailors were found on the Isle Royale the following spring, having escaped the wreck only to die of exposure on the island. Then there is the ill-fated Steinbrenner, plagued by bad luck from the time of her construction, when she was nearly destroyed by fire, to her eventual (and tragic) sinking in 1953. These tales and more represent loss of life and property—and are haunting stories of brave and heroic crews.Arranged chronologically and presented in three sections covering Minnesota's North Shore, Isle Royale, and the three biggest storms in Minnesota’s Great Lakes history (the 1905 Mataafa storm, the 1913 hurricane on the lakes, and the 1940 Armistice Day storm), each shipwreck documented within these pages provides a piece to the history of shipping on Lake Superior.

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Book SynopsisA classic of maritime history updated with new information, John P. Holland, 1841–1914 is the sole full-length biography of the man whose technological innovations led to the launching of the first modern submarine in May 1897. While David Bushnell may be considered the father of the submarine, Holland devised the technical improvements that enabled a craft to operate equally effectively whether submerged or surfaced, and it was his design that the U.S. Navy purchased in 1900. Richard Knowles Morris draws on diaries and papers left by his grandfather, a longtime friend of Holland and an superintending engineer of the Holland Torpedo Boat Company (later Electric Boat), to trace the inventor's eventful life. Morris recounts Holland's early years, his frustration in dealing with the Fenians and the U.S. Navy, and his company's negotiations with Japan, Great Britain, and Russia for Holland boats. Of particular interest is the selection of photographs that offer an enlightening pictorial of early submarine history.Trade ReviewThe classic story of the self-trained inventor-engineer who revolutionized naval architecture." —Journal of American History"This is a sound work in a highly controversial field, and can be read by naval buffs or history students with equal profit and pleasure." —Choice"A solid, scholarly step toward [Holland's] belated recognition." —New York Times Book Review"Certain to be the standard biography of Holland." —The Irish Sword"By far the best of its kind." —Submarines"[The book's] virtues are many: felicitous coverage of Holland's childhood, youth, and career in Ireland; fascinating material on the activities of the Fenian Society; the agonies of obtaining a government contract; and the history of the Electric Boat Company …This is the definitive work on Holland and is considerably more than naval and submarine history." —Library Journal

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Book SynopsisOn a frigid, stormy day in February of 1686, a small French sailing ship lost control and ran aground in Matagorda Bay. Pounded in the Texas bay by gale-force winds and storm surges, La Belle slipped beneath the water and sank to the bottom, where she would remain for centuries. More than 300 years later, Texas Historical Commission archeologists discovered La Belle's resting place. Using cutting-edge technology and scientific innovation, investigators excavated the shipwreck and salvaged from its watery grave more than a million artifacts, including bronze guns, muskets, trade beads, axes, rings, bells, dishes, medicines - everything a New World colony needed for survival. Authors James E. Bruseth and Toni S. Turner use vivid photographs and engaging descriptions to share the excitement of discovery as they piece together both the ship and its tragic story. For those interested in history, archeology, or the quest for clues to the past, ""From a Watery Grave"" tells a riveting tale of nautical adventure in the seventeenth century and reveals modern scientific archeology at its best.

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Book SynopsisMediterranean maritime art and the forced labor on which it depended were fundamental to the politics and propaganda of France's King Louis XIV (r. 1643-1715). Yet most studies of French art in this period focus on Paris and Versailles, overlooking the presence or portrayal of galley slaves on the kingdom's coasts. By examining a wide range of artistic productions-ship design, artillery sculpture, medals, paintings, and prints-Meredith Martin and Gillian Weiss uncover a vital aspect of royal representation and unsettle a standard picture of art and power in early modern France. ;; With an abundant selection of startling images, many never before published, The Sun King at Sea emphasizes the role of esclaves turcs (enslaved Turks)-rowers who were captured or purchased from Islamic lands-in building and decorating ships and other art objects that circulated on land and by sea to glorify the Crown. Challenging the notion that human bondage vanished from continental France, this cross-disciplinary volume invites a reassessment of servitude as a visible condition, mode of representation, and symbol of sovereignty during Louis XIV's reign.Trade Review"A dazzling collection of early modern artworks and a major interdisciplinary achievement between social history and art history that uncovers, for the first time, how and why the French Sun King Louis XIV shaped his propaganda on the enslavement of Mediterranean Muslims. A masterpiece!"-M'hamed Oualdi, Sciences Po, Paris;; "Superbly illustrated, The Sun King at Sea is a tour de force of the historical imagination that deploys the resources of social and cultural history and of material and visual culture to reveal and portray the enslavement of Muslims for Louis XIV's Mediterranean galley fleet. Martin and Weiss's approach to a disturbing subject too long hidden in plain sight is unflinchingly illuminating yet humane."-Colin Jones, Queen Mary University of London;; "This is not only an original and archivally rich study but also an unsettling and necessary one. The authors combine rigorous historical research with fresh and insightful visual analysis to chronicle the violence, coercion, and suppression that underpinned the fabric of Louis XIV's navy and the diplomatic, material, and symbolic structures of his reign. Martin and Weiss's book is a must-read for all students and scholars of the Sun King's court as well as those interested in slavery, maritime power, and society in early modern Europe."--Mark Ledbury, Director of the Power Institute, The University of Sydney; “An indispensable and original book that centers the Mediterranean Sea in the visual and ornamental imaginary of the so-called Grand Siècle; interprets maritime vessels as pluralistic micro-societies and vehicles of royal propaganda, and locates the roots of Orientalism in an early-modern Turquerie complicated by the longstanding presence of slavery and Islam in France. A must-read!” —Anne Lafont, directrice d'études à l'EHESS

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Book SynopsisRichard Gebhart traces little-known voyages of Great Lakes ships that sailed the Atlantic beginning in the 1850s. They bore cargoes to and from the lakes and as far as Constantinople. Gebhart recovers the voices of long-ago ship captains, along with their cargo manifests and itineraries. Drawing on deep research in old newspapers and maritime archives, he traces the construction of new ships and shipyards, and the comings and goings and travails of the lakes’ workhorses. Included is a mournful visit to a boneyard where many ships’ lives ended. Among many other lost tales, Gebhart brings to light the rise of oil tankers, marking the great twentieth-century energy transition in shipping. A must-read for Great Lakes shipping fans.

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Book SynopsisFacing an insurmountable deficit in resources compared to the Union navy, the Confederacy resorted to unorthodox forms of warfare to combat enemy forces.Perhaps the most energetic and effective torpedo corps and secret service company organized during the American Civil War, the Singer Secret Service Corps, led by Texan inventor and entrepreneur Edgar Collins Singer, developed and deployed submarines, underwater weaponry, and explosive devices.The group’s main government-financed activity, which eventually led to other destructive inventions such as the Hunley submarine and behind-enemy-line railroad sabotage, was the manufacture and deployment of an underwater contact mine. During the two years the Singer group operated, several Union gunboats, troop transports, supply trains, and even the famous ironclad monitor Tecumseh fell prey to its inventions.In Confederate Saboteurs: Building the Hunley and Other Secret Weapons of the Civil War, submarine expert and nautical historian Mark K. Ragan presents the untold story of the Singer corps. Poring through previously unpublished archival documents, Ragan also examines the complex personalities and relationships behind the Confederacy’s use of torpedoes and submarines.

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Book SynopsisIn the late eighteenth and early nineteenth centuries, Algerian piracy in the Mediterranean loomed large in the American imagination. An estimated seven hundred American citizens, sailors, and naval officers were taken captive over the course of the Barbary Crises (1784–1815), and this overseas danger threatened to grow and irreparably harm the young republic. Blood and Ink reconstructs the largely forgotten influence of these early American conflicts with North Africa on notions of publicity, print culture, and racial and national identity from independence to the Civil War. Exploring the extensive archive of texts inspired by the conflicts—from captivity narratives, novels, plays, and poems to broadsides, travel narratives, children’s literature, newspaper articles, and visual ephemera—Jacob Crane connects anxieties surrounding North African piracy and white slavery to both the development of American abolitionism and representations of transatlantic African and Jewish identities in the early national and antebellum periods.Trade ReviewCrane’s book makes a very clear case for why writing about Barbary piracy matters to the development of American ideas and ideas of race, freedom, and citizenship. He recovers several different early American works that can be used as the basis for further scholarship while also adding to the extant scholarship on the transatlantic and transnational origins of US literature." - Sharada Balachandran Orihuela, author of Fugitives, Smugglers, and Thieves: Piracy and Personhood in American Literature"Blood and Ink draws attention to a significant but critically neglected area of focus in early US print culture concerning Barbary discourse. It will have a major impact within early American studies of print culture and its relationship to race, nation, and global perceptions in the late eighteenth to early nineteenth centuries." - Keri Holt, author of Reading These United States: Federal Literacy in the Early Republic, 1776–1830Table of Contents List of Illustrations Acknowledgments Introduction Appealing to the Nation Part One: Of Pirates and Print Chapter One The Patriot and the Sable Bard Chapter Two Barbary(an) Invasions Part Two: The Barbary and the Jewish Atlantic Chapter Three “A Vague Resemblance to Something Seen Elsewhere” Chapter Four Performing Diaspora in Noah’s Travels Part Three: The Long Shadow of the Barbary Chapter Five “The Advantage of a Whip-Lecture” Chapter Six Peter Parley in Tripoli Coda: Selim’s Archive Fever Notes Index

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Book SynopsisIn the late eighteenth and early nineteenth centuries, Algerian piracy in the Mediterranean loomed large in the American imagination. An estimated seven hundred American citizens, sailors, and naval officers were taken captive over the course of the Barbary Crises (1784–1815), and this overseas danger threatened to grow and irreparably harm the young republic. Blood and Ink reconstructs the largely forgotten influence of these early American conflicts with North Africa on notions of publicity, print culture, and racial and national identity from independence to the Civil War. Exploring the extensive archive of texts inspired by the conflicts—from captivity narratives, novels, plays, and poems to broadsides, travel narratives, children’s literature, newspaper articles, and visual ephemera—Jacob Crane connects anxieties surrounding North African piracy and white slavery to both the development of American abolitionism and representations of transatlantic African and Jewish identities in the early national and antebellum periods.Trade ReviewCrane’s book makes a very clear case for why writing about Barbary piracy matters to the development of American ideas and ideas of race, freedom, and citizenship. He recovers several different early American works that can be used as the basis for further scholarship while also adding to the extant scholarship on the transatlantic and transnational origins of US literature." - Sharada Balachandran Orihuela, author of Fugitives, Smugglers, and Thieves: Piracy and Personhood in American Literature"Blood and Ink draws attention to a significant but critically neglected area of focus in early US print culture concerning Barbary discourse. It will have a major impact within early American studies of print culture and its relationship to race, nation, and global perceptions in the late eighteenth to early nineteenth centuries." - Keri Holt, author of Reading These United States: Federal Literacy in the Early Republic, 1776–1830

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Book SynopsisThe Gulf of Mexico: A Maritime History presents the first such narrative of the earth's tenth largest body of water. In this beautifully written and illustrated volume, John S. Sledge explores the people, ships, and cities that have made the Gulf's human history and culture so rich. Many famous figures who sailed the Gulf's viridian waters are highlighted, including Ponce de León, Robert Cavelier de La Salle, Francis Drake, Jean Laffite, Tyrone Power, Richard Henry Dana, Libbie Custer, Elizabeth Agassiz, Ernest Hemingway, and Franklin D. Roosevelt, as well as Charles Dwight Sigsbee, at the helm of the doomed Maine. But Sledge also introduces a fascinating and diverse array of people connected to maritime life in the Gulf, including Mesoamerican pyramid builders, Spanish conquistadores, French pirates, Creole women, Cajun fishermen, African American stevedores, British jack-tars, and Greek sponge divers.Gulf events of global historical importance are detailed, such as the only defeat of armed and armored steamships by wooden sailing vessels, the first accurate deep-sea survey and bathymetric map of any ocean basin, the development of shipping containers by a former truck driver frustrated with antiquated loading practices, and the worst environmental disaster in American annals.Occasionally shifting focus ashore, Sledge explains how people representing a gumbo of ethnicities built some of the world's most exotic cities--Havana, way station for conquistadores and treasure-filled galleons; New Orleans, the Big Easy, famous for its beautiful French Quarter, Mardi Gras, and relaxed morals; and oft-besieged Veracruz, Mexico's oldest city, founded in 1519 by Hernán Cortés. Throughout history the residents of these cities and their neighbors along the littoral have struggled with challenges both natural and human-induced--devastating hurricanes, frightening epidemics, catastrophic oil spills, and conflicts ranging from dockside brawls to pirate raids, foreign invasion, civil war, and revolution. In the modern era the Gulf has become critical to energy Production, fisheries, tourism, and international trade, even as it is threatened by pollution and climate change. The Gulf of Mexico: A Maritime History is a work of verve and sweep that illuminates both the risks of life on the water and the riches that come from its bounty.

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Book SynopsisTraces the maritime routes and the historical networks that link port cities around the Atlantic worldPort Cities of the Atlantic World brings together a collection of essays that examine the centuries-long trans-Altlantic transportation of people, goods, and ideas with a focus on the impact of that trade on what would become the American South. Employing a wide temporal range and broad geographic scope, the scholars contributing to this volume call for a sea-facing history of the South, one that connects that terrestrial region to this expansive maritime history. By bringing the study up to the 20th century in the collection's final section, the editors, Jacob Steere-Williams and Blake C. Scott, make the case for the lasting influence of these port cities—and Atlantic world history—on the economy, society, and culture of the contemporary South.

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