Archive Results For: Other (Early Modern)
Book Review-‘Chasing a Dream: The exploration of the Imaginary Pacific’ by J. Dunmore
John Dunmore has impeccable credentials for authorship of this volume. A prolific author of over 30 volumes, including biographies and journals of significant Pacific explorers such as Jean-Francois de La Perouse, Jean-Francois de Surville and Louis de Bougainville, and the recipient of many awards including the Legion d’Honneur for his contribution to French scholarship, he […] Read More
Filed under: Other (Early Modern) | Other (Nineteenth C) | Other (Eighteenth C) | Pacific
Subjects include: Science & Exploration
Book Review-‘The Political Economy of Indigo in India, 1580–1930: A global perspective’ by G. A. Nadri
Ghulam Nadri, an Associate Professor of History at Georgia State University specializing in early modern Gujarat and India, traces the convoluted ‘long-durée moment’ [sic] (p. 121) of natural indigo in India as a global commercial dye. Informed by the global commodity chains conceptual framework, this book looks at this particular trade from its inception in […] Read More
Filed under: Other (Early Modern) | Other (Twentieth C) | Other (Nineteenth C) | Other (Eighteenth C) | East India Company
Subjects include: Logistics
Book Review-‘The Sea in History: The medieval world’ ed. by M. Balard
This is the second of four massive volumes, the product of Oceanides, the extraordinary five-year international (but primarily French) research project which brings together hundreds of the world’s leading scholars of maritime history, and attempts to answer some of the very largest questions of how the sea has impacted on human history, from ancient times […] Read More
Filed under: Antiquity | Other (Early Modern)
Subjects include: Administration | Archaeology | Strategy & Diplomacy
Book Review-‘British Shipbuilding,1500–2010: A history’ by Anthony Slaven
First let us do away with the conceptual problem with this book. Although its title suggests it is a survey of over 500 years of British shipbuilding, the first 200 years are dealt with in the first four pages and the eighteenth century is done and dusted by page 15. This perhaps suggests a book […] Read More
Filed under: Other (Early Modern) | Other (Twentieth C) | Other (Nineteenth C) | Other (Eighteenth C)
Subjects include: Shipbuilding & Design
Book Review-‘A Maritime History of Somerset: Volume 2’ by Adrian J. Webb (ed.)
The first thing that readers will notice is that this book is beautifully produced. It has black-and-white and colour images throughout, ranging from engravings, maps, newspaper articles, Punch cartoons, watercolour sketches, paintings and modern photographs, all in a book that costs only £20. The topics are diverse, with chapters on maritime travel, the development of […] Read More
Filed under: Other (Early Modern) | Other (Twentieth C) | Other (Nineteenth C) | Other (Eighteenth C)
Subjects include: Archaeology | Harbours & Dockyards | Leisure & Small Craft | Whaling & Fishing
Book Review-‘The Sloop of War, 1650–1763’ by Ian McLaughlin
Research into the technical development of sailing ships of war has seen a significant increase in recent decades, led by the excellent in-depth monographs from the likes of Jean Boudriot in France (although nothing comparable to these has been published on British or American vessels, even though the expertise exists). However, prior to the significant […] Read More
Filed under: Other (Early Modern) | Other (Eighteenth C)
Subjects include: Shipbuilding & Design
Book Review-‘Empire and Holy War in the Mediterranean: The galley and maritime conflict between the Habsburgs and the Ottomans’ by P. Williams
Philip Williams’s book examines the maritime rivalry between the Ottomans and the Spanish Monarchy in the sixteenth and early seventeenth centuries. As the author demonstrates, a remarkable part of this conflict was the use of the North African corsairs by the Ottomans, and the Hospitaller Knights of Malta by the Habsburgs of Spain, as state-sponsored […] Read More
Filed under: Other (Early Modern) | Mediterranean
Subjects include: Battles & Tactics | Pirates, Corsairs & Privateers
Book Review-‘Competing Visions of Empire: Labor, slavery, and the origins of the British Atlantic Empire’ by A. L. Swingen
Discussions about the nature of the British Empire have been many and diverse and Abigail Swingen’s Competing Visions of Empire provides a fascinating exploration of the connections between economics, domestic politics, international relations, slavery and empire. Central to Swingen’s book are the debates about how to provide sufficient labour for the colonies; something which eventually […] Read More
Filed under: Other (Early Modern) | Other (Nineteenth C)
Subjects include: Administration | Strategy & Diplomacy
Book Review-‘London’s Sailortown 1600–1800: A social history of Shadwell and Ratcliff, an early modern London riverside suburb’ by D. Morris and K. Cozens
Sailortowns were the districts of merchant and naval ports where sailors visited, often lived and were entertained. It was a distinct area characterized by its public houses, brothels and low entertainment that employed significant numbers of working people. However, sailor-towns the world over have been a much neglected area of analysis by maritime and urban […] Read More
Filed under: Other (Early Modern) | Other (Nineteenth C) | Other (location)
Subjects include: Miscellaneous
Book Review-‘The Medieval Nile: Route, navigation and landscape in Islamic Egypt, by J. P. Cooper
Herodotus (History, 2.5) named Egypt as the ‘gift of the river’. Cooper (p. 1), believes that Herodotus’ description suggests a rather passive Egypt, while in reality it was an active society interacting with the environment — the Nile, in which the main component was river navigation. Therefore the title and subtitle of this book convey […] Read More
Filed under: Antiquity | Other (Early Modern) | Mediterranean
Subjects include: Science & Exploration