Archive Results For: English Channel
Book Review – ‘The Seasick Admiral: Nelson and the health of the navy’ by Brian Vale
As suggested by the title, this latest book by Kevin Brown, the curator of the Alexander Fleming Museum at St. Mary’s Hospital, describes Nelson’s almost continuous poor health, his numerous wounds including his ophthalmic problems, his death at Trafalgar, his burial and subsequent ‘apotheosis’. The author explains in detail the admiral’s attitude to the health […] Read More
Filed under: English Channel | Mediterranean
Subjects include: Battles & Tactics | Biography | Manpower & Life at Sea | Miscellaneous
Book Review – ‘The Channel Islands 1370–1640: Between England and Normandy’ by Tim Thornton
As Professor Thornton makes clear in his introduction, this is not a maritime history of the Channel Islands. It is essentially a study of the administrative and religious relationship of the Islands with the Crown of England and of their links with Normandy, which continued into the early modern period. There is only occasional reference […] Read More
Filed under: English Channel | Early Modern
Subjects include: Miscellaneous
Book Review – ‘Inside the Illicit Economy: Reconstructing the smugglers’ trade of sixteenth century Bristol’ by Evan T. Jones
As a literary critic and cultural historian, rather than an economic historian, and as a reader that likes to be told stories, especially ripping good yarns, I approached reviewing Evan Jones’ detailed account of the ‘business’ of smuggling in sixteenth-century Bristol with some trepidation. Inside the Illicit Economy is not a ‘romantic’ account of smuggling, but […] Read More
Filed under: Tudors | English Channel | Early Modern | Irish Sea | Internal Waterways
Subjects include: Harbours & Dockyards | Miscellaneous
Book Review – ‘The Maritime Landscape of Roman Britain: Water transport on the coasts and rivers of Britannia’ by James Ellis Jones
Water transport was an important part both of Roman army logistics and of the civil economy of Roman Britain. Given that Britain was an island, and one not only with many accessible shore areas, but also with rivers allowing access far inland, this appears to be rather self-evident. Yet even so, water transport has not […] Read More
Filed under: Antiquity | English Channel | Irish Sea | Internal Waterways
Subjects include: Archaeology | Ship Handling & Seamanship
Book Review – ‘The Rise and Fall of Harland and Wolff’ by Fred M. Walker
In the past 40 years, the business of Harland and Wolff has gone through traumatic times, and sadly, its shipbuilding days now are at an end. This period witnessed great changes in production methods, massive government intervention coupled with revised management structures and systems. Irrespective of the negative outcome, this complex story has to be […] Read More
Filed under: Atlantic | English Channel | North Sea
Subjects include: Harbours & Dockyards | Shipbuilding & Design
Book Review – ‘Frank Henry Mason: Marine painter and poster artist’ by Pieter van der Merwe
This small hardback monograph updates and expands a 47-page booklet by the same author, published by Hartlepool Museum in 1996, and accompanying a local exhibitions on Mason who was born at nearby Seaton Carew in 1875 (a date confirmed here, rather than 1876). It is published to coincide with two other retrospectives this year, one […] Read More
Filed under: English Channel | North Sea
Subjects include: Art & Music
Book Review – ‘Empire, Technology and Seapower: Royal Navy crisis in the age of Palmerston’ by Miles Taylor
This study is in some respects a prequel to the author’s 2007 monograph on ironclad technology and Anglo-American sabre-rattling during the Civil War era. This time the canvas is broader, taking in the Crimean War, the arms race with France and the early stages of the American conflict. As with his earlier work, Fuller successfully […] Read More
Filed under: Atlantic | English Channel | Mediterranean
Subjects include: Battles & Tactics | Navies | Strategy & Diplomacy
Book Review – ‘Histoire de la Marine du Consulat et de l’Empire (1799–1815)’ by Patrice Decencière
Much has been written about the Royal Navy of the Napoleonic wars but, surprisingly, few books have been published about its main opponent, the French Republican, then Imperial Navy, and most of these have focused only on the war at sea. Pierre Levêque, author of a masterly social study on naval officers of the French […] Read More
Filed under: English Channel | North Sea | Mediterranean
Subjects include: Battles & Tactics | Navies | Strategy & Diplomacy
Book Review – ‘Britain Against Napoleon: The organisation of victory, 1793–1815’ by Leighton James
Wellington’s victory over Napoleon at that climactic battle at Waterloo signified the end of the Anglo-French hostilities which lasted, with two brief pauses, for 22 years. In the aftermath of the battle Waterloo was hailed in Britain as a turning point in history. Victory was used to consolidate a sense of British identity in the […] Read More
Filed under: English Channel | North Sea | Mediterranean
Subjects include: Administration | Navies | Strategy & Diplomacy
Book Review – ‘Dutch Warships in the Age of Sail 1600–1714: Design, construction, careers and fates’ by Ron Brand
In 1993 Jaap Bruijn, a Dutch professor (now emeritus) of maritime history, wrote The Dutch Navy of the Seventeenth and Eighteenth Centuries, published by the University of South Carolina Press. Bruijn wrote the book because he strongly felt the need for such a study in the college’s maritime history collection in Leiden, where he taught for […] Read More
Filed under: English Channel | North Sea
Subjects include: Navies | Shipbuilding & Design