Archive Results For: Other (Early Modern)
Book Review-‘Britain and the Ocean Road: Shipwrecks and people, 1297–1825’ by I. Friel, Pen
Britain’s maritime history is often studied by looking at events on the large scale. Friel’s book does something different. This book tells the individual stories of eight different ships, through which we can get a snapshot of events spanning just over 500 years. This is the first of two volumes employing this approach, with the […] Read More
Filed under: Other (Early Modern) | Other (Nineteenth C) | Shipwrecks
Subjects include: Archaeology | Manpower & Life at Sea
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-‘ Sovereign of the Seas 1637: A reconstruction of the most powerful warship of its day’ by J. McKay
This elegant book anatomizes a famous ship, combining original scholarship and expert draughting to provide unprecedented access to the structure, art and power of a Stuart icon that established a new standard type. King Charles I ordered the Sovereign of the Seas in 1634 to transcend existing prestige warships, including those of his uncle, King […] Read More
Filed under: Other (Early Modern)
Subjects include: Historic Vessels, Museums & Restoration | Shipbuilding & Design
Book Review – ‘French Warships in the Age of Sail 1626–1786: Design, construction, careers and fates’ by Benjamin W. D. Redding
In this new study on French warships, that covers the period from the appointment of Gaspard de Coligny, Cardinal de Richelieu to the post of grande maître de la navigation in 1626 to the revolutionary era, Rif Winfield and Stephen S. Roberts provide a detailed and desirable study of French naval strength. The book is the second […] Read More
Filed under: Period | Early Modern | Eighteenth Century | Other (Early Modern) | Other (Eighteenth C)
Subjects include: Navies | Shipbuilding & Design
Review – ‘The Portuguese in the Creole Indian Ocean: Essays in historical cosmopolitanism’ by Markus Vink
Using the work of French Réunion historian Françoise Vergès, ‘Indian-Oceanic Creolizations: Processes and practices of creolization on Réunion Island’ (in C. Stewart, Creolization: History, ethnography, theory Walnut Creek ca, 2007, 133–52) as an entry point, Fernando Rosa, a research affiliate in the English department at Stellenbosch University, South Africa, and self-described ‘displaced Brazilian scholar’ (p. 39), presents […] Read More
Filed under: Early Modern | Eighteenth Century | Other (Early Modern) | Other (Twentieth C) | Nineteenth Century | Other (Nineteenth C) | Other (Eighteenth C) | Indian Ocean | Twentieth Century
Subjects include: Miscellaneous
Book Review – ‘Navigation on Wood: Wooden navigational instruments 1590–1731: an analysis of early modern Western instruments for celestial navigation, their origins, mathematical concepts and accuracies’ by Wolfgang Köberer
Reviewing the literature one notices, though, that a certain class of instruments has not received the attention one would expect with regard to the fact that it was in wide use since the end of the sixteenth well into the eighteenth century: the wooden instruments developed from the cross-staff and its variants. They were, of […] Read More
Filed under: Period | Early Modern | Eighteenth Century | Other (Early Modern) | Other (Eighteenth C)
Subjects include: Miscellaneous | Science & Exploration
Book Review – ‘Pirate Nests and the Rise of the British Empire, 1570–1740’ by Johan Francke
The Navigation Act of 1696 made provision for more Vice-Admiralty Courts in America. This resulted simultaneously in the objection of local councils and mutual accusations of piracy amongst them. When Parliament introduced the Act for the More Effectual Suppression of Piracy in 1700, the tide definitively turned and what had been tolerated by officials for […] Read More
Filed under: Atlantic | Eighteenth Century | Other (Early Modern) | Pirates | Other (Eighteenth C)
Subjects include: Administration | Pirates, Corsairs & Privateers
Book Review: ‘The Other Norfolk Admirals: Myngs, Narbrough and Shovell’ by Sam McLean
In this book retired consultant anaesthetist Simon Harris discusses the careers of three important Royal Navy flag officers in the period 1660 to 1707: Christopher Myngs, John Narborough (or Narbrough) and Cloudesley Shovell. The book begins with a short description of the lives of the three admirals before they joined the Royal Navy; however it […] Read More
Filed under: Atlantic | English Channel | Period | Eighteenth Century | Other (Early Modern)
Subjects include: Biography | Navies
Book Review-‘Tussen honger en zwaard. Nederlands Atlantische rijk in de zeventiende eeuw ‘ by W. Klooster
In the Netherlands, in common with other Western countries, the colonial past has during the last ten years become the subject of an emotionally charged and strongly polarizing debate. More than the historical facts and developments themselves, their significance for present and future generations has become the most important element of the discussions. This has […] Read More
Filed under: Other (Early Modern)
Subjects include: Strategy & Diplomacy
Book Review – ‘Feeding Globalization: Madagascar and the provisioning trade, 1600–1800’ by John McAleer
In 1798 Benjamin Stout, the captain of an American merchant ship which had apparently been shipwrecked off the southern coast of Africa two years earlier, wrote approvingly of Madagascar, describing it as ‘one of the largest and finest islands in the world’. Indeed, he was astonished that ‘no European power hath as yet made a […] Read More
Filed under: Eighteenth Century | Other (Early Modern) | Other (Eighteenth C) | Indian Ocean | East India Company
Subjects include: Merchant Marines | Miscellaneous | Strategy & Diplomacy
Book Review-‘Van de Velde & Son, Marine Painters: The firm of Willem van de Velde the Elder and Willem van de Velde the Younger, 1640–1707’ by R. Daalder, translated by M. Hoyle
Britain’s most famous marine painter, William Turner, sighed at the sight of an eighteenth-century print of a painting by Willem van de Velde the Younger: ‘This made me a painter!’ For obvious reasons, this frequently cited anecdote is mentioned in the book Van de Velde & Son, Marine Painters, because both the Van de Veldes, […] Read More
Filed under: Other (Early Modern) | Other (Eighteenth C)
Subjects include: Art & Music
Book Review-‘A Low Set of Blackguards: The East India Company and its maritime service 1600–1834:volume 1, The Heroic Age 1600–1707’ by R. Woodman
The founding of the East India Company on the last day of 1600 showed the determination of London merchants to challenge the Dutch monopoly of the trade in spices. Hailed as the forerunner of a vast empire based on trade, writers such as Richard Hakluyt helped to arouse public support for the enterprise. Diplomacy dictated […] Read More
Filed under: Other (Early Modern) | East India Company
Subjects include: Strategy & Diplomacy