Archive Results For: Mediterranean
Book Review-‘Taranto and Naval Air Warfare in the Mediterranean, 1940–1945’ by D. Hobbs
During the Second World War the Mediterranean remained a strategic lifeline between Britain and the Suez Canal, and thence the oil fields of the Middle East and the resources and manpower of the British Empire. Yet in 1940 it presented a formidable obstacle; from the British base at Gibraltar to its base in Malta was […] Read More
Filed under: WW2 | Mediterranean
Subjects include: Battles & Tactics | Naval Aviation
Book Review-‘Roger of Lauria (c. 1250–1305), Admiral of Admirals’ by C. D. Stanton
Roger of Lauria, the commander of the galley fleets of the Kingdom of Aragon in the last years of the thirteenth century, was portrayed as a great hero by many contemporary chroniclers of his exploits. He has also been much lauded by modern historians writing on the naval aspects of the War of the Sicilian […] Read More
Filed under: Late Middle Ages | Mediterranean
Subjects include: Biography
Book Review: ‘British Shipping in the Mediterranean During the Napoleonic Wars: The untold story of a successful adaptation’ by Thomas Malcomson
The fourth volume in Brill’s Studies in Maritime History is provided by Katerina Galani. Her study of British merchant shipping in the Mediterranean, between 1770 and 1815, pushes aside elements of our earlier understanding of the growth, organizational development, and the influence of war in this landlocked sea. Though focusing on British merchant trade, the […] Read More
Filed under: Napoleonic War | Mediterranean | Nineteenth Century
Subjects include: Merchant Marines | Navies
Book Review-‘Exploring the Britannic: The life, last voyage and wreck of ‘Titanic’’s tragic twin’ by S. Mills
The Royal Mail Steamer Britannic was laid down in 1911 in Harland & Wolff’s Belfast ship yard where her near sisters Olympic and Titanic had been built. She was intended to have been the third of the White Star Line’s trio of luxury liners which were necessary to maintain a weekly service on the North […] Read More
Filed under: WW1 | Mediterranean
Subjects include: Archaeology | Historic Vessels, Museums & Restoration
Book Review – ‘Churchill and the Dardanelles’ by W. Mark Hamilton
First Lord of the Admiralty (1911–15) Winston Churchill was a key player in the Dardanelles campaign, and Canadian historian Christopher Bell is determined to distinguish the myth from the reality. In Bell’s book Churchill emerges as a figure deserving much sympathy, but also a somewhat flawed personality who was responsible for numerous costly mistakes. Bell’s […] Read More
Filed under: WW1 | Mediterranean | Twentieth Century
Subjects include: Battles & Tactics | Navies | Strategy & Diplomacy
Book Review – ‘French Battleships of World War One’ by Andrew Lambert
This book is the prequel to John Jordan’s French Battleships 1922–1956 of 2009, written with Robert Dumas. Anyone who has read that superb book will know what to expect. This time Philippe Caresse shares the writing credits. The opening section examines French naval policy and capital ship procurement after the fall of the Second Empire in 1870, […] Read More
Filed under: Atlantic | WW1 | English Channel | Interwar | WW2 | Mediterranean | Nineteenth Century | Twentieth Century
Subjects include: Navies | Shipbuilding & Design
Book Review – ‘I Hope to Have a Good Passage: The business letters of Captain Daniel Jenkins, 1902–11’ by J. D. Davies
David Jenkins, the former principal curator of the transport collections at the National Waterfront Museum in Swansea, has done a splendid job of editing this remarkable collection of documents, and placing them before a wider audience. Daniel Jenkins (1871–1922; apparently no relation of the editor) was born in the village of Aberporth on Cardigan Bay, […] Read More
Filed under: Atlantic | English Channel | Irish Sea | Mediterranean | Other (Twentieth C) | Twentieth Century
Subjects include: Biography | Harbours & Dockyards | Manpower & Life at Sea | Merchant Marines
Book Review – ‘The Sea in History: The modern world’ by Steven Gray
This tome forms a substantial finale to the four volume Sea in History series, a result of the huge Oceanides project. It is an 848-page behemoth, with a contributor list that reads like a who’s who of modern naval history, and indeed beyond the field. It is therefore appropriate that the volume is edited by a scholar as distinguished […] Read More
Filed under: Atlantic | Baltic | English Channel | North Sea | Irish Sea | Mediterranean | Nineteenth Century | Indian Ocean | Caribbean | Pacific
Subjects include: Battles & Tactics | Manpower & Life at Sea | Merchant Marines | Miscellaneous | Navies | Strategy & Diplomacy
Book Review – ‘Mythology and Diplomacy in the Age of Exploration’ by Desiree Arbo
Author A Knobler aims to examine the process of early modern European expansion as a whole, not as projects undertaken by individual state. In this way Knobler, a historian of the crusades and early modern imperial expansion, seeks to redress a prevailing tendency in the historiography of expansion to follow national lines. A considerable part […] Read More
Filed under: Atlantic | Early Modern | Mediterranean
Subjects include: Biography | Strategy & Diplomacy
Book Review – ‘The Sea in History: The ancient world’ by Boris Rankov
The French-based Océanides project on The Sea in History, edited by Christian Buchet of the Centre d’Étude de la Mer at the Catholic University of Paris, has now been published in a series of four large volumes of which this, on the ancient world, is the first. The overall objectives of the series have already […] Read More
Filed under: Atlantic | Antiquity | Mediterranean | Indian Ocean | Caribbean | Pacific
Subjects include: Archaeology | Manpower & Life at Sea | Pirates, Corsairs & Privateers | Whaling & Fishing
Book Review-‘Primo Mediterraneo: Meditazioni sul mare più antico della storia’ by S. Tusa
In this book, Sebastiano Tusa, one of the most important Italian underwater archaeologists and superintendent of the Sea of Sicily, offers a series of interesting suggestions about the history of the Mediterranean, from its very first dawn to the medieval period. Throughout the 12 chapters of the book, in fact, the author draws a general […] Read More
Filed under: Mediterranean
Subjects include: Archaeology
Book Review – ‘The Watery Grave: The life and death of the cruiser HMS ‘Manchester’ by Derek Law
In 2009 the wreck of the British cruiser Manchester was located by divers off the coast of Tunisia. A subsequent lecture on the discovery by a university colleague inspired the author, then president of the World Ship Society, to examine the facts about her contentious sinking. She had been controversially scuttled off the coast of Kelibia […] Read More
Filed under: WW2 | Mediterranean | Twentieth Century
Subjects include: Battles & Tactics | Navies