Naval History

Another publication covering the naval warfare of the past times. All readers with the interest in the history will find the answers to the most common questions, they will get to know hot the medieval navies were organized and how the rulers used them. The publication gives readers a real wealth of relevant information addressing both tactics and strategy of the fleets of those times and also the extent to which people managed to understand, explore and exploit the possibilities of sea.

The present interesting and fascinating account was prepared to bring to life all difficulties and dangers of the seafaring of medieval times. Particularly, the author of the book reveals the exploits of France, England and Italian city states, examining why there the naval battles took place, and how they were fought. The readers will find the information about the logistical back up required to maintain a navy fleet and the battles from the North Sea to the Mediterranean.

The book is really excellent taking into account the quality and depth of the performed analysis and coverage of the documents, it is considered a good reading companion for every naval historian and maritime archaeologist. A book is full of very illustrative examples showing how the warships were deployed and depicting the uses and limitations of the sea power of medieval period.

Really worthwhile volume that should definitely be read by all people with the serious interest in the Greek trade and economy of the ancient time. The book has been deservedly treated as a very important and valuable contribution to the understanding oh the maritime trade activities of those times. The content of the publication is well-balanced and sensible.

The author is dealing directly with the subject and the introduction to the book has been mainly devoted to the point of organization and procedure. All of the passages and terms covered within this documents have been translated from Greek to English; however, when reproducing the original Greek the author has resorted to two scripts - ancient Greek and the one transliterated into English, with corresponding decisions being made depending on the nature of the particular passage.

The sections covering the abbreviations and providing the references to the Greek terms have also been provided. The books provide all required information on the classical exchange patterns and modes, juridical place and wealth of the maritime traders of the ancient times, as well as the official and unofficial attitudes towards the maritime traders and archaic exchange modes. There are several appendices with additional information. In short, a good one for naval historians and enthusiasts...

The people of Scotland have always been close to the sea. It is impossible to live more than 40 miles from salt water except on the heights of the Cairngorms. The sea forms most of the boundaries of Scotland, though these have not always been fixed - in the past the Western Isles have been ruled from Ireland and Norway, Orkney and Shetland by Norway. Sea transport has always had a vital role in holding the country together, across its innumerable rivers, channels and sounds.

It has also opened up the possibilities of international trade, allowing Scotland to develop relations with many places without going through its old rival, England. Nearly a third of Scotland's population lives in the four great cities, Glasgow, Edinburgh, Dundee and Aberdeen, all of which are seaports; though this was not achieved without some effort, for Edinburgh had to create a satellite port at Leith, while Glasgow used enormous resources in deepening the Clyde. The cultural difference between Edinburgh and Glasgow is great for two cities so close together.

This is partly explained by the fact that they face in different directions - Edinburgh towards England and the Continent, Glasgow towards Ireland, the Western Isles and America. Throughout the centuries Scotland has maintained independent relations with Scandinavia, the Netherlands, Ireland, France and North America. According to Professor Donaldson: "'From the Firth of Forth, Bremen and Bergen are no further away than Antwerp and Dieppe; from Aberdeen, the Kattegat is as near as the English Channel and the nearest continental country is Norway". Without the maritime dimension, England is seen as Scotland's only neighbour and that country seems to dominate Scotland's history.

This book attempts to take an overall view of Scottish maritime history, archaeology and building and monuments, uniting the different themes of passenger and cargo shipping, fishing, shipbuilding and naval history, each of which is well covered by its own specialists, with little reference to how it relates to the others. Because of pressures of space, it is regrettably not possible to do full justice to all aspects of the subject - yachting, the seaside, lifeboats and shipwrecks, for example, are barely mentioned...

In his interesting and useful work, Thomas Tartaron has presented a brand new and quite original reassessment of the shipping world at the times of the Mycenaean Greeks, and we now talking about the Late Bronze Age. By all accounts the seafarers did enjoy the marine connections with other peoples as distant as Sicily and Egypt. Such the long-distance relationships have been celebrated and subjected to numerous close studies.

By contrast, unfortunately, the live and vibrant worlds of local marine interaction as well as exploration of the seas have been mainly ignored. The author argues that subject local maritime networks presented in the forms of "small worlds" or "coastscapes" are in fact much more representative of the true content of life of Mycenaean. In this title, he is offering readers a complete template of methodological and also conceptual instruments to recover tha small worlds mentioned above together with the human communities that used to inhabit them.

He did a great job trying to combine the archaeological, geo-archaeological and also anthropological approaches with the network theory and ancient papers to demonstrate the application of that scheme in the numerous case studies. The publication presents absolutely new perspectives and challenges for all professionals and enthusiasts of archaeology interesting in maritime connectivity.

This book by Ronald Love is representing a remarkably useful survey of the European expansion and exploration that took place during the early modern historical period and thorough examination of this development. The text contained in this volume combines the factual historical information with the analysis and interpretation; as a result, the book become very informative, easy- and interesting to read.

Apart from the main text, there are lots of supplementary information included in the publication, for example biographical profiles, excerpts fro the important historical documents, and even the glossary. For sure, students and all people with the interest in the naval history will definitely find this book very useful when searching for the information or conducting researches on the maritime exploration.

The author has described the early Portuguese expeditions that were taken along the coast of Africa; in addition, he also addressed the discovery of Americas by Spanish mariners, exploration of the Pacific, and the expeditions made to search for a northern marine passage to China. The narrative chapters of the book will guide the readers from the exploration of Mongol Empire by Marco Polo to Magellan's travel around the globe and all other historically important events. This is a treasure for any naval history enthusiast.

The present volume was worked out and released with the ultimate intention of its authors to conduct a thorough exploration of the maritime-related mechanics of the Empire, making an attempt to demonstrate how exactly the different aspects of this enterprise have been made to "work".

The chapters of the book showing that the emergence and works of the professional hydrographic services in the Navy and the ways both commercial and political imperatives assisted in driving the maritime surveying, have been considered central to that. The British Admiralty did support the exploration as well as the investigation of geographical expeditions undertaken by such famous characters of the past as Captain Cook and Charles Darwin.

In fact, we may say that the maritime expeditions of the Captain Cook's "Endeavour" and Darwin's "Beagle" were partly concerned with the interest of the Empire. And that was one of the reason why the "Manual of Scientific Enquiry" was developed and published by the British Admiralty to be of help for the naval officers.

One of the aims of this volume was to examined the marine technologies made the great studies in the XIX century. In the beginning of the nineteenth century, most of the vessels crossing the Atlantic were wooden, having a displacement of just a few hundred tons, relying on the sails and winds, and having no contact with the land...

Here is an excellent re-print of the John Pryor's book which brings together an imposing mass of data related to the shipping in Mediterranean Sea of the medieval times. This study will be found very useful for all people seriously interested in the early modern history of that area. The book focuses on oceanographic and meteorological conditions in the Mediterranean, it shows all limitations faced by the oar and sailing vessels over a thousand years ago and explains how those limitations impacted on naval warfare and piracy and influenced sea trade and travel.

The content of the book is very easy-to-read and well-written bringing together a huge amount of useful information relating to the maritime shipping in the medieval Mediterranean sea. The publication contains the results of the very serious study conducted with the intention to fill in the existing information gaps and provide interested people with a complete panorama. This book presents a very powerful example of how useful it can be to make careful studies of both geographical and technical influences.

The publication considers the relevant technological limitations of the shipping traffic in conjunction with the specific geographical conditions within which vessels were operating and description of how those conditions led to establishing of the important sea lanes of safe and effective shipping. 

If, as Winston Churchill famously remarked, Admiral John Jellicoe was the only and unique person who could have lost the Great War in an afternoon, then by extension Admiral Reinhard Scheer was the man who could have achieved victory in so few hours. Reinhard Scheer, the longest serving of the four wartime commanders of Imperial Germany's High Sea Fleet, was one of the most influential wartime German naval officers.

His thirty-two months commanding the fleet covered some of the critically important events not only of the sea war, but also the entire conflict - the Battle of Jutland or Skagerrakschlacht, and the Germanese resumption of the unrestricted submarine warfare which was instrumental in bringing in America on the side of the Entente powers. In August 1918 Scheer was promoted to Chef des Admiralstabs (Chief of the Naval Staff) after the incumbent. Admiral Hennine von Holtzendorff. tendered his resignation to the Kaiser in late July owing to ill-health. He remained in this position until the end of the war, before resigning from his post on 14 November, and retiring from the navy on 17 December. Born in 1863, Scheer joined the Imperial Navy as a cadet in 1879 and his career path followed the usual combination of RMS Lusitania caused a serious diplomatic crisis with the US in May 1915.

In January 1916 von Pohl was taken ill and relieved of his command. He would die of liver cancer before the end of February. On 18 January Reinhard Scheer was appointed as the Commander-in-Chief of the whole High Sea Fleet. Within the navy fleet he was widely acknowledged as being the best choice and a man of action. Scheer was determined to inject a new lease of life into the German naval campaign in the North Sea and while the Grand Fleet still needed to be avoided, except for in favorable circumstances, he envisaged a much more aggressive use of surface and U-boat forces backed up by Zeppelins for advanced reconnaissance.

The Kaiser approved Scheer !s plans and the first operation in late April was another coastal bombardment by German battle cruisers. this time of Lowestoft and Yarmouth, designed to destroy any forces sent out to defend against the German attack. In the event the bombardment did little damage while an opportunity was missed to inflict damage on the weaker British Harwich Force.