Naval History

In his interesting work, the professional naval historian and archaeologist Brian Fagan has tackled a very rich topic, namely enduring quest to master the world's oceans, considered one of the most mysterious terrains. It will be great for all people fascinated with the sea stories and also interesting in boats. The content of the publication is very readable, covering a good portion of the naval history from the earliest boat journeys in the Pacific Islands to the nineteenth century transportations.

The author has made an excellent attempt to capture the types of the journeys and reasons why the mariners of the ancient times needed to strike out past the horizon line. In some cases the author has also tried to capture the technical parts of the journeys covered, for example how the boats were boats and what materials were used for construction, how they navigated and manned, and other important and interesting matters.

He recommends to read this volume in a linear manner but to start with the epilogue. The book starts quite slow but them rapidly picks up steam. It includes lots of information related to the people from different eras, correct interpretations of the collected data and even several personal anecdotes making it a very fascinating reading.

This publication has been intended to describe the role Barrow's output of the war materials played in the total Great War effort, paying particular attention to the Barrovians and men who surrounded the South Lakeland area, people fighting abroad, and women war heroes.

The publication also includes valuable background information on the town's history, ship construction and iron ore, and it also provides a list of the vessels that were build at Barrow both before and during the Great War supplemented with the reference information on what exactly happened to each of those vessels. The author, Ruth Mansergh, has revealed the whole importance of the Barrow's industrial output.

He has also made an attempt to uncover some little-known stories and designed the content of this work in a manner allowing it to be accessible to every single reader. The publication may also serve as a reference guidance to the local soldiers of the First World War. Two appendices to the main text of the book provide some research guidance and contain the extract from the historical document.

The readers of this book will also find inside the information on the lost heroes of that War, recipients of the Victoria Cross and other relevant historical information.

This is a remarkably well-prepared and documented publication detailing the history of the Atlantic Ocean. Simon Winchester is telling a truly breathtaking story, blending geography with reminiscence and science with exposition. The author did a really amazing work weaving together the history and the human interest in the very readable manner. According to the numerous reviews, this title is a must-have publication for every naval historian and enthusiast.

The publication will provide readers with a deep and fresh insight into the ocean history. The information selected for inclusion into this book has been presented in a really interesting way for the readers. The author of the volume is a known and recognized person in the world of naval history and all his publication have been greatly appreciated by the readers all around the planes, but this particular book has been deservedly considered one of his best titles.

Being a best-seller author and consummate historian, he has set an excellent and epic text telling us not only the pure story of the Atlantic Ocean itself, but also the story of the whole human civilization. The readers will definitely like this resonant and penetrating tale of the humans finding their way across the history...

The twentieth century witnessed two of the greatest conflicts in human history, both First and Second World Wars. In each conflict, although on a grander scale in the Second World War. global war was waged on the land, in the air, and at sea. Entire nations waged war. their citizenry, governments, militaries, and industries.

In fact, these wars could not have been waged at all had it not been for the industrial might of the participants to field the massive armies, navies, and air forces involved. Arguably, victory in these two wars was also dependent and perhaps largely the result of one side's ability to outproduce the other. In this regard, Anglo-American industrial strength was of unquestionable importance and was key to the outcome of each conflict.

It is with this accomplishment that this book is most concerned; that is. the Anglo-American shipbuilding industry of World War I and especially World War II, when it flourished as never before. We examine the shipbuilding efforts of the first, principally in order to shed light on how they led up to the grander achievements involved in the second. Although there is a heavy dose of historical review and reflection presented in this work, we actually approach the subject chiefly from a geographical perspective. In other words, our primary focus is examining the spatial distribution (and concentration) of shipbuilding activities in both countries.

This, however, is not simply a geographical description or inventory of the locations of shipyards, but a more in-depth analysis of how geography influenced this industry and its spatial distribution. Consideration is given to the various geographical factors that not only impinged upon shipyard locations, but also on the shipbuilding programs of Britain and America during World War II.

The interests of the United States in the Middle East and Southwest Asia as well as in the Eastern Africa regions are dating almost to the very founding of the American nation. Since the Second World War, the Navy of the United States has been there standing at the very first line of defense for all those national interests.

From the time of the establishment of the Middle East Forces back in 1949 and through to the beginning of the XXI century, the Navy did serve as a serious and reliable force for the human peace and social stability in this region.

The presence of the Forces helped a lot to prevent the potential regional crises from their further escalating into the full-scale wars, to enforce different international sanctions and also to possibly minimize the damage associated with the regional conflicts to both American and allied interests. And, in the cases where there were absolutely no any other alternative, the Navy had to go ahead to was in order to defend those interests.

Their physical presence also resulted in several peaceful operations, including the maritime rescue, numerous military exercises conducted together with the regional allies, and humanitarian assistance. The content of the present volume will definitely be greatly appreciated by the people - not only professionals but also amateurs and enthusiasts - having an interest in the subject.

This is an excellent and even outstanding book - real classics and a real boon for the enthusiasts of the naval history. The volume was intended to provide readers with the finely detailed analysis of the ship construction technologies of three of Europe's foremost maritime powers ever written. The book by Blaire Olivier and David Roberts contains very useful info on French, English and Dutch shipbuilding industries.

Apart from the main content with the general technical information on the subject, this publication includes a very useful Glossary of the terminology that is commonly used in the shipbuilding - it contains some ten percent of the second Ollivier manuscript, but actually presents numerous terms of the ship construction technology listed in alphabetical order; note that it does not address any of the foreign practices; on the other hand, it will provide readers with a huge amount of detailed information covering the French Navy.

In short, this is another must-have publication expected to be very useful and of course interesting for all readers. The text is very easy to read, and the author has supplemented it with almost hundred of the carefully selected colorful and informative illustrations and thirteen plates. We would really recommend this title to the historians and even to the general readers. 

During the last years of the XVI century, the Dutch East-India Company became a very strong economic and political force in Asian region to become a world-leading private company by mid-seventeenth century. Robert Parthesius, professional archaeologist and marine historian, who is the author of present definitive publication has explored one of the most important instruments in the trade of the company, namely its vessels.

He has performed a complete reconstruction of the shipping activities conducted by the subject company using a truly unique database charting all movements of even smaller ships that used to be ignored in the past. The publication demonstrates that the broad range of sizes and types of ships were in fact what did give the above mentioned Company its ability to sail and continue to trade in a profitable manner for years; the book also combines the best of the naval history and relevant maritime archaeological researches to change people's understanding of the dynamics behind maybe the most successful and critically important businesses of that period.

A perfect monograph prepared to present the case of how exactly the VOC developed its network in Far East region. A very useful title covering all aspects of subject development.

A very useful and actually must-have dictionary for any naval history enthusiast. The content of the dictionary has been laid out in the encyclopedic manner, and the ships have been covered in the alphabetical order. Note that the dictionary does not contain any ship drawings or photographic images, this book is rather intended to provide naval historian as well as other interested people with clear facts about the vessels covered in it.

Each of the entries in the book starts with a resume of the important technical details about the ship followed with a brief information related to the loss of the subject ship. In some of the cases, this narrative has been limited to few lines that comprise all available information. However, in case of the more famous vessels these narrative portions may run even to several pages. Taking into account that the present volume was initially published by Lloyd's of London, the vessels that have been listed in the book are mainly those insured by Lloyd's.

That is the reason why the book does not include some of the famous vessels - they were either insured with some another agency or simply not insured at all. Though some readers might find this fact a bit confusing, it shall be noted that it is next to impossible to cover literally all vessels lost throughout the naval history in a single volume of any size.