Archive Results For: Other (Eighteenth C)
Book Review-‘Congress Buys a Navy: Politics, economics, and the rise of American naval power, 1881–1921’by P. E. Pedisich
Pedisich (former Admiral Stephen B. Luce Chair of Naval Strategy, US Naval War College) has written a legislative history of the US Navy from the Progressive Era of American history to just after the end of the First World War. The navy, in the period from the end of the Civil War in 1865 until […] Read More
Filed under: WW1 | Interwar | American Revolution | American Civil War | Other (Eighteenth C) | Other (Nineteenth C)
Subjects include: Navies
Book Review-‘Canada’s Bastions of Empire: Halifax, Victoria and the Royal Navy 1749–1918’ by B. Elson
Those who follow Canadian naval historiography are likely more accustomed to the story of the slender beginnings of the Royal Canadian Navy from 1910 to the build-up during the Second World War. Less well known is the story of Canada’s two naval dockyards and fortresses, one on each coast. The Pacific coast was covered by […] Read More
Filed under: Other (Twentieth C) | Other (Nineteenth C) | Other (Eighteenth C)
Subjects include: Harbours & Dockyards | Navies | Strategy & Diplomacy
Book Review-‘Charting the Oceans’ by P. Whitfield
This is declared as a ‘revised and updated’ edition of a book from the author’s series on cartography published in 1996. It was not reviewed in this journal though Derek Howse had alerted readers to its imminence in his assessment of the companion volumes (Mariner’s Mirror 83:4 (1998), 483). These he described as ‘scholarly, and […] Read More
Filed under: Early Modern | Other (Nineteenth C) | Other (Eighteenth C) | Other (Twentieth C)
Subjects include: Science & Exploration
Book Review-‘Knickerbocker Commodore: The life and times of John Drake Sloat, 1781–1867’ by B. A. Castleman
Biographies of American naval officers in the age of sail have tended to focus on the captains and heroes of the US Navy’s early conflicts. The multiple volumes on Stephen Decatur and his actions in the Barbary campaign through the War of 1812, and his final demise in a duel with a fellow captain, are […] Read More
Filed under: War of 1812 | Other (Nineteenth C) | Other (Eighteenth C)
Subjects include: Biography
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 (Nineteenth C) | Other (Eighteenth C) | Other (Twentieth C)
Subjects include: Archaeology | Harbours & Dockyards | Leisure & Small Craft | Whaling & Fishing
Book Review-‘Britain’s Industrial Revolution: The making of a manufacturing people, 1700–1870’ by Barrie Trinder
This is an impressive, substantial and attractive book. Written by a lifelong practitioner and publicist of industrial archaeology (whose extra-mural lectures were greatly enjoyed by the reviewer’s parents among many others), it presents the myriad aspects of British industrial development across the titular period on the basis of specific examples. In doing so, it draws […] Read More
Filed under: Other (Nineteenth C) | Other (Eighteenth C)
Subjects include: Archaeology | Harbours & Dockyards | Logistics | Strategy & Diplomacy
Book Review-‘Victory: From fighting the Armada to Trafalgar and beyond’ by Iain Ballantyne/Nelson Navy and Nation: The Royal Navy and the British people, 1688–1815 by Quintin Colville and James Davey (eds)and Jonathan Eastlan
Both of these books have one fundamental thing in common: at their heart they deal with real objects, living heritage, which readers can see for themselves either by visiting HMS Victory in Portsmouth or the long-term exhibition entitled Nelson, Navy and Nation at the National Maritime Museum (NMM). In that sense their apparent audience is […] Read More
Filed under: Tudors | The Armada | Other (Nineteenth C) | Other (Eighteenth C)
Subjects include: Battles & Tactics | Navies | Strategy & Diplomacy
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-‘Innocent on the ‘Bounty’: The court-martial and pardon of Midshipman Peter Heywood, in letters’ by D. A. Maxton and R. E. Du Rietz (eds)
It is the ambiguity of the characters and their behaviour that gives the story of the mutiny on the Bounty such great, undiminishing interest. The various parties do not easily divide into right and wrong, good and bad, and attempts to do so, whether in fictional or partial contemporary accounts, need to be treated with […] Read More
Filed under: Mutiny & Discipline | Other (Eighteenth C)
Subjects include: Biography | Manpower & Life at Sea