Ship History

In this widely praised history of an infamous institution, award-winning scholar Marcus Rediker shines a light into the darkest corners of the British and American slave ships of the eighteenth century. Drawing on thirty years of research in maritime archives, court records, diaries, and firsthand accounts, The Slave Ship is riveting and sobering in its revelations, reconstructing in chilling detail a world nearly lost to history: the "floating dungeons" at the forefront of the birth of African American culture.

When she first went to sea in April of 1961, the US nuclear submarine Thresher was the most advanced submarine at sea, built specifically to hunt and kill Soviet submarines. In The Death of the USS Thresher, renowned naval and intelligence consultant Norman Polmar recounts the dramatic circumstances surrounding her implosion, which killed all 129 men onboard in history's first loss of a nuclear submarine.

At the peak of his power, in the 1940s and 1950s, William Francis Gibbs was considered America's best naval architect. His quest to build the finest, fastest, most beautiful ocean liner of his time, the S.S. United States, was a topic of national fascination. When completed in 1952, the ship was hailed as a technological masterpiece at a time when "made in America" meant the best.

A stunning behind-the-curtain look into the last years of the illegal transatlantic slave trade in the United States.

When the fishing vessel La Conte sinks suddenly at night in 100-mile-per-hour winds and record 90-foot seas during a savage storm in January 1998, her five crewmen are left to drift without a life raft in the freezing Alaskan waters and survive as best they can. One hundred fifty miles away, in Sitka, Alaska, an H-60 Jayhawk helicopter lifts off from America's most remote Coast Guard base in the hopes of tracking down an anonymous Mayday signal. A fisherman's worst nightmare has become a Coast Guard crew's desperate mission.

In this original and meticulously researched narrative history, the author of the “stunning” (The Sunday Times) Young and Damned and Fair uses the sinking of the Titanic as a prism through which to examine the end of the Edwardian era and the seismic shift modernity brought to the Anglo-American world.

Rose George, acclaimed chronicler of what we would rather ignore, sails from Rotterdam to Suez to Singapore on ships the length of football fields and the height of Niagara Falls; she patrols the Indian Ocean with an anti-piracy task force; she joins seafaring chaplains and investigates the harm that ships inflict on endangered whales. Sharply informative and entertaining, Ninety Percent of Everything reveals the workings and perils of an unseen world that holds the key to our economy, our environment, and our very civilization.

This introduction to the years of the Napoleonic Wars (1793 to 1815) tells the story of one of the keys to that great conflict, the ship of the line - the deadly battleships that played such a vital role in the battles. The author describes the ships' construction and armaments, the daily life of the men who served, and the problems faced by commanders of the time in battles that include the Glorious First of June, the Battle of the Nile and Trafalgar.

The frozen wilderness of the Arctic captivated and mystified voyagers and explorers in the 1800s, driven by greed for riches, fame, and the search for the elusive Northwest Passage. Delve into the jaw-dropping courage and awe-inspiring expeditions from the Golden Age of Arctic exploration with "Frozen Frontier" Follow the footsteps of heroic explorers and their courageous penetrations into an unknown world of mammoth ice floes, terrifying polar bears, and bone-chilling cold. Witness their incredible triumphs and heartbreaking tragedies, and discover the untold stories of the earliest ...

Historical novel based in Ireland and Spain during the period from 1640 to 1923. It tells the story of the Moore family who are part of the landed gentry while being Catholic. Follow the trials and tragedies of four generations as they navigate their way through turbulent Irish history, family and religious allegiances, while walking the fine line between sworn loyalty to the King and sympathy to growing Irish Nationalism.

Fifty years after the Atlantic slave trade was outlawed, the Clotilda became the last ship in history to bring enslaved Africans to the United States. The ship was scuttled and burned on arrival to hide the wealthy perpetrators to escape prosecution. Despite numerous efforts to find the sunken wreck, Clotilda remained hidden for the next 160 years. But in 2019, journalist Ben Raines made international news when he successfully concluded his obsessive quest through the swamps of Alabama to uncover one of our nation’s most important historical artifacts.

Warship Builders is the first scholarly study of the US naval shipbuilding industry from the early 1920s to the end of World War II, when American shipyards produced the world's largest fleet that helped defeat the Axis powers in all corners of the globe. A colossal endeavor that absorbed billions and employed virtual armies of skilled workers, naval construction mobilized the nation's leading industrial enterprises in the shipbuilding, engineering, and steel industries to deliver warships whose technical complexity dwarfed that of any other weapons platform.

By 1120, Henry was perhaps the most formidable ruler in Europe, with an enviable record on the battlefield, immense lands and wealth and unprecedented authority in his kingdoms. Everything he had worked so hard for was finally achieved, and he was ready to hand it on to his beloved son and heir, William Ætheling. Henry I and his retinue set out first. The White Ship - considered the fastest afloat - would follow, carrying the young prince. Spoilt and arrogant, William had plied his comrades and crew with drink from the minute he stepped aboard....

It has been more than one hundred years since the RMS Titanic sank to the bottom of the North Atlantic ocean. The disaster has captivated history buffs and non-history buffs alike, and it is easy to see why. Some of the most illustrious people of the day were on board: some survived, and some did not. Legends abound about whether the ship's maiden voyage was cursed. And then there is the ship itself: arguably the most luxurious vessel to ever travel oversea.

In July 1862, Confederate Captain Raphael Semmes took command of a secret new warship. At the helm of the Alabama, he became the most hated and feared man along the Union coast, as well as a Confederate legend. Now, with unparalleled authority, depth, and a vivid sense of the excitement and danger of the time, Stephen Fox describes Captain Semmes's remarkable wartime exploits.

The fearsome wrath of the storms that brew over the Great Lakes has challenged and defeated some of the staunchest vessels constructed in the shipyards of port cities along the US and Canadian lakeshores. Here Richard Gebhart tells the tales of some of these ships and their captains and crews, from their launches to their sad demises—or sometimes, their celebrated retirements. This volume is a must-hear for anyone intrigued by the maritime history of the Great Lakes.

America in 1775 was on the verge of revolution - or, more likely, disastrous defeat. After the bloodshed at Lexington and Concord, England's King George sent hundreds of ships westward to bottle up American harbors and prey on American shipping. Colonists had no force to defend their coastline and waterways until John Adams of Massachusetts proposed a bold solution: The Continental Congress should raise a navy. Meticulously researched and masterfully told, Give Me a Fast Ship is the definitive history of the American Navy during the Revolutionary War.

Author Kurt C. Schlichting tells the story of the Manhattan waterfront as a struggle between public and private control of New York's priceless asset. Nature provided New York with a sheltered harbor but presented the city with a challenge: to find the necessary capital to build and expand the maritime infrastructure. From colonial times until after the Civil War, the city ceded control of the waterfront to private interests, excluding the public entirely and sparking a battle between shipping companies, the railroads, and ferries for access to the waterfront.

1718 the infamous pirates of the Caribbean meet secretly in Nassau harbor on Blackbeard’s prized ship the Queen Anne’s Revenge. Caught in the clutches of a tempestuous storm, their lives take an unimaginable turn when a time vortex whisks them away to the year 1873, casting their ship into the depths of San Francisco Bay. Prepare to set sail on a thrilling fusion of history and fantasy as the Golden Age of Piracy collides with the untamed spirit of the Wild West! In Pirates of the Wild West, the most notorious swashbucklers to ever roam the Caribbean find themselves shipwrecked and ...

On November 21, 1914, after sailing more than ten thousand miles from Norway to the Antarctic Ocean, the Endurance finally succumbed to the surrounding ice. Ernest Shackleton and his crew had navigated the 144-foot, three-masted wooden vessel to Antarctica to become the first to cross the barren continent, but early season pack ice trapped them in place offshore. They watched in silence as the ship’s stern rose twenty feet in the air and disappeared into the frigid sea, then spent six harrowing months marooned on the ice in its wake.