Maritime History & Piracy

From New York Times bestselling author Hampton Sides, an epic account of the most momentous voyage of the Age of Exploration, which culminated in Captain James Cook’s death in Hawaii, and left a complex and controversial legacy still debated to this day....

On January 28, 1742, a ramshackle vessel of patched-together wood and cloth washed up on the coast of Brazil. Inside were thirty emaciated men, barely alive, and they had an extraordinary tale to tell....

The ordeal of the whaleship Essex was an event as mythic in the nineteenth century as the sinking of the Titanic was in the twentieth....

The mutiny on HMS Bounty, in the South Pacific on 28 April 1789, is one of history's truly great stories - a tale of human drama, intrigue and adventure of the highest order - and in the hands of Peter FitzSimons it comes to life as never before. Commissioned by the Royal Navy to collect breadfruit plants from Tahiti and take them to the West Indies, the Bounty's crew found themselves in a tropical paradise. Five months later, they did not want to leave.

Ghosh unravels the impact of the opium trade on global history and in his own family—the climax of a years long project....

In this grand and thrilling narrative, the acclaimed biographer of Magellan, Columbus, and Marco Polo brings alive the singular life and adventures of Sir Francis Drake, the pirate/explorer/admiral whose mastery of the seas during the reign of Queen Elizabeth I changed....

Finding and identifying a pirate ship is the hardest thing to do under the sea. But two men—John Chatterton and John Mattera—are willing to risk everything to find the Golden Fleece, the ship of the infamous pirate Joseph Bannister....

The year is 1680, in the heart of the Golden Age of Piracy, and more than 300 daring, hardened pirates—a potent mix of low-life scallywags and a rare breed of gentlemen buccaneers—gather on a remote Caribbean island....

The true, harrowing story of the ill-fated 1913 Canadian Arctic Expedition and the two men who came to define it....

The story of the 16th-century’s epic contest for the spice trade, which propelled European maritime exploration and conquest across Asia and the Pacific.

Pirates have long lived in the realm of romance and fantasy, symbolizing risk, lawlessness, and radical visions of freedom. But at the root of this mythology is a rich history of pirate societies....

The dramatic and deliciously swashbuckling story of Sarah Kidd, the wife of the famous pirate Captain Kidd, charting her transformation from New York socialite to international outlaw during the Golden Age of Piracy....

From the New York Times best-selling author of The Ghost Map and Extra Life, the story of a pirate who changed the world....

Driven by a passion for travel and history and a love of ships and the sea, former Monty Python stalwart and beloved television globe-trotter Michael Palin explores the world of HMS Erebus, last seen on an ill-fated voyage to chart the Northwest Passage....

In the tradition of Erik Larson's Dead Wake comes The Last Voyage of the Andrea Doria, about the sinking of the glamorous Italian ocean liner....

It is impossible to understand our world today without understanding the last 100 years of Middle Eastern history. The history of the region in the 20th century is so varied and complex that it defies easy explanations....

As he explodes many accepted pirate myths (i.e. "walking the plank" is pure fiction), Cordingly replaces them with a truth that is more complex and often bloodier....

What was daily life in Nelson's navy really like, for everyone from the captain down to the rawest recruit? What did they eat? What songs did they sing? What was the schedule of watches? How were the officers and crew paid, and what was the division of prize-money? Find out....

Richard Snow's masterly account of the only mutiny in the history of the United States Navy—a little-known but once notorious event that cost three young men their lives—is part murder mystery, part courtroom drama, and and as propulsive and dramatic as the bestselling novels of Patrick O’Brian.

He gathered his crew of four, readied his 49-foot steel boat, the Can Do, and entered the maelstrom of the blizzard that was to become known as the "Storm of the Century"....

Ocean is a story that begins with the formation of the mid-Atlantic ridge some 200 million years ago and ends with the Castilian conquest of the Canary Islands in the fifteenth century, providing a template for the methods used by the Spanish in their colonization of the New World.

On October 1, 2015, Hurricane Joaquin barreled into the Bermuda Triangle and swallowed the container ship El Faro whole, resulting in the worst American shipping disaster in 35 years....

On July 30, 1945, the USS Indianapolis is sailing alone in the Philippine Sea when she is sunk by two Japanese torpedoes. For the next five nights, almost 300 miles from the nearest land, nearly 900 men battle injuries, sharks, dehydration, insanity, and eventually each other....

The discovery of Endurance briefly swept the anxiety and rancour of 2022 from the headlines of the world, and new generations thrilled again to one of the greatest tales of all time....

From the golden age of piracy to Confederate privateers and oyster pirates, the maritime communities of the Chesapeake Bay are intimately tied to a fascinating history of intrigue, plunder and illicit commerce raiding....