Archive Results For: Pacific
Book Review-‘The Company Fortress: Military engineering and the Dutch East India Company in South Asia, 1638–1795, by E. Odegard
Dutch rule in Asia in the era of the Dutch East India Company (VoC) was sustained by fortified ports and strategic locations, supported with small armies moved by sea to enhance the defences. The failure of any one element in this strategy would bring down the rest. The VoC was a major economic and political […] Read More
Filed under: Other (Early Modern) | Other (Eighteenth C) | Indian Ocean | Pacific
Subjects include: Administration | Harbours & Dockyards | Strategy & Diplomacy
Book Review-‘Chasing the ‘Bounty’: The voyages of the ‘Pandora’ and the ‘Matavy’’ by D. A. Maxton (ed.)
The story of the Bounty and its problematic ‘green grocery trip’ between 1787 and 1790, has long fascinated authors and historians. Over time, the truth behind the story has sadly become bogged down by a mixture of myth and fiction. The sheer number of plays, films, documentaries, radio programmes, books and news articles are almost […] Read More
Filed under: Mutiny & Discipline | Other (Eighteenth C) | Pacific
Subjects include: Manpower & Life at Sea | Ship Handling & Seamanship
Book Review – ‘Combat at Close Quarters: An illustrated history of the US Navy in the Vietnam War’ by Eric Grove
The Vietnam War is not normally seen as a maritime conflict. Yet it was in many ways. Not only was much of the air campaign against North Vietnam and the Communists in the south launched from aircraft carriers but there were huge efforts devoted to maritime interdiction operations, shore bombardment and a riverine campaign that […] Read More
Filed under: Location | Period | Post WW2 | Twentieth Century | Pacific
Subjects include: Battles & Tactics | Navies | Strategy & Diplomacy
Book Review -‘Progressives in Navy Blue: Maritime strategy, American empire and the transformation of US naval identity 1873–1998’ by Eric Grove
During the last quarter of the nineteenth century, the United States navy was transformed. The ‘old navy’ of wooden cruisers devoted to constabulary duties and monitors to be mobilized for coast defence was transformed into a steel navy primarily organized for war. Its capabilities were demonstrated against Spain in 1898. This has traditionally been seen […] Read More
Filed under: Atlantic | WW1 | Interwar | WW2 | Other (Twentieth C) | Nineteenth Century | Other (Nineteenth C) | Pacific
Subjects include: Navies | Shipbuilding & Design | Strategy & Diplomacy
Book Review – ‘The Royal Navy in the Age of Austerity 1919–22: Naval and foreign policy under Lloyd George’ by Richard Dunley
The historiography of the Royal Navy in the periods before and during the First World War has grown and developed in an extraordinary fashion over the past 10 to 15 years. This has fundamentally changed how we view the organization which fought the conflict from a political, social, technological and strategic perspective. This development tends […] Read More
Filed under: English Channel | Interwar | Twentieth Century | Pacific
Subjects include: Navies | Strategy & Diplomacy
Book Review – ‘Forty Years Master: A life in sail and steam’ by Frank Scott
The title of this autobiography, Forty Years Master, sums up the dominating theme in Killman’s recollections: being in command of a merchant ship for four decades. This is also its structure, ship by ship, and the style, ‘authoritative’. The autobiographical text occupies 250 pages, and the remaining 100 pages are taken up the editorial team, […] Read More
Filed under: Atlantic | Other (Twentieth C) | Nineteenth Century | Other (Nineteenth C) | Twentieth Century | Pacific
Subjects include: Biography | Merchant Marines
Book Review – ‘Around Cape Horn Once More: The story of the French clipper ship ‘Montebello’’ by Frank Scott
This book centres on the life of the French barque Montebello (2,284 grt) from launch in October 1900 until it was wrecked in November 1906. The use of old postcards to illustrate places mentioned in the text works well, and the wreck photographs of the Montebello and Croisset are suitably poignant. However, the author, Paul Simpson, writes throughout […] Read More
Filed under: Atlantic | English Channel | Other (Twentieth C) | Twentieth Century | Pacific
Subjects include: Biography | Historic Vessels, Museums & Restoration | Miscellaneous
Book review – ‘Dive Scapa Flow; Dive Palau: The shipwrecks’ by Innes McCartney
These two offerings by Rod Macdonald represent some of the best of the current crop of shipwreck guides for recreational divers. As a genre, this type of literature can be traced back to the dawn of sports diving in the middle of the last century. These books serve their market very well. Recreational divers seeking […] Read More
Filed under: North Sea | WW2 | Twentieth Century | Shipwrecks | Pacific
Subjects include: Battles & Tactics
Book Review-‘Picturing the Pacific: Joseph Banks and the shipboard artists of Cook and Flinders’ by J. Taylor
Taylor’s book comes just as institutions, societies and governments are beginning the decade-long process of commemorating the 250th anniversary of Captain James Cook’s three voyages to the Pacific. On 25 August 1768 Cook set out in the Endeavour to view the transit of Venus and search for the unknown southern continent in the South Seas. […] Read More
Filed under: James Cook | Pacific
Subjects include: Art & Music
Book Review – ‘Whales’ Bones of the Americas, South Atlantic and Antarctica’ by Arthur G. Credland
This book is the penultimate volume in a magnificent series covering cetacean remains across the globe. Unlike the sites covered previously, for this book the author has relied on the judicious use of secondary sources, and information from his invaluable correspondents. This in no way diminishes the value as a reference source, however, and the […] Read More
Filed under: Atlantic | Nineteenth Century | Twentieth Century | Pacific | Antarctic
Subjects include: Archaeology | Miscellaneous | Whaling & Fishing
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 – ‘The Remarkable Hybrid Maritime World of Hong Kong and the West River Region in the Late Qing Period’ by S. C. M. Paine
From the mid-nineteenth century on, the Chinese junk trade could not compete with foreign steamers on the Yangzi River or along the Chinese coast, yet it survived through the 1930s in the West River Delta, home to the two key treaty ports of Canton and Hong Kong. This book explains why. The six chapters show […] Read More
Filed under: Nineteenth Century | Twentieth Century | Pacific
Subjects include: Merchant Marines | Strategy & Diplomacy