Showing titles in Maritime History & Piracy

In December 1864, five men stood on the desolate shore of a subantarctic island watching their ship break apart in the waves and sunken rocks as they contemplated an uncertain fate, In the constant presence or icy rain and howling wind, the crew of the Grafton spent the next twenty months both enduring and leveraging the unforgiving elements of Auckland Island as they awaited a rescue ship that never arrived.

A shipwreck is a time capsule. When a maritime archaeologist picks up an item from the seabed, it is a direct connection with history. The last time the object was touched was sometimes centuries before; now, it’s starting a new life. The millions of vessels that lie under the sea tell the...

Celebrated historian Diana Preston presents betrayals, escapes, and survival at sea in her account of the mutiny of the Bounty and the flight of convicts from the Australian penal colony. The story of the mutiny of the Bounty and William Bligh and his men's survival on the open ocean for 48 days and 3,618 miles has become the stuff of legend. But few realize that Bligh's escape across the seas was not the only open-boat journey in that era of British exploration and colonization.

Saved at the Seawall is the definitive history of the largest ever waterborne evacuation. Jessica DuLong reveals the dramatic story of how the New York Harbor maritime community heroically delivered stranded commuters, residents, and visitors out of harm's way. Even before the US Coast Guard called for "all available boats," tugs, ferries, dinner boats, and other vessels had sped to the rescue from points all across New York Harbor. In less than nine hours, captains and crews transported nearly half a million people from Manhattan.

Frequently depicted as “Scandinavian scavengers”, warlike pirates, raiders, and invaders, the Vikings have lately surfaced from the depths of history to become pop culture’s most adored ruffians. For Prof. Fee, this recent craze for all things Viking is a mixed blessing. The spike in popular fascination often occasions a need to separate the wheat from the chaff: fact from fiction, history from myth, literature from legend.

The newest addition to Globe Pequot’s Shipwrecks series covers the sensational wrecks and maritime disasters from each of the five Great Lakes. It is estimated that over 30,000 sailors have lost their lives in Great Lakes wrecks. For many, these icy, inland seas have become their final resting place, but their last moments live on as a part of maritime history.

Two Years Before the Mast is a book by the American author Richard Henry Dana, Jr., written after a two-year sea voyage starting in 1834 and published in 1840. While at Harvard College, Dana had an attack of the measles that affected his vision. Thinking it might help his sight, Dana, rather than going on a Grand Tour as most of his fellow classmates traditionally did (and unable to afford it anyway), and being something of a nonconformist, left Harvard to enlist as a common sailor.

In 1827 the Royal Navy purchased a Baltimore clipper and renamed her the Black Joke. Assigned to the Preventative Squadron, she patrolled the west coast of Africa and freed 3,692 captives from enslavement. Beloved by seafarers and celebrated by the public, the Black Joke would become the most famous weapon in the campaign for abolition. But in her previous life as the Henriqueta, the Black Joke had been a slave ship. Through the experiences of slavers and abolitionists, captives and crew, Stephen Taylor charts the vessel's extraordinary double life.

In Titanic Conspiracy, Emmy-nominated actor and internationally bestselling author Geoffrey Giuliano dives deep beneath the surface of one of the most iconic maritime disasters in history. With the skill of a seasoned storyteller and the intensity of a man driven by truth, Giuliano offers listeners more than a retelling of the doomed voyage of the RMS Titanic—he delivers a gripping, unnerving exploration of what might have really happened that cold April night in 1912.

"Listen to this if you want to hear a narrator at the top of his game recount a fascinating--and at times disturbing--true story of adventure, disaster, discovery, cannibalism, and more. Will Damron makes Levy's fascinating account of the Greely (Polar) Expedition come to life...This is a...

Captain William Kidd stands as one of the most notorious "pirate" outlaws ever, but his legend is tainted by a bed of lies. Having captivated imaginations for more than three hundred years and inspired many stories about pirates, troubling questions remain. Was he really a criminal or is the truth more inconvenient: that he was a buccaneer's worst nightmare, a revered pirate hunter turned fall guy for scheming politicians?

Sisters Nora and Delia have been given the chance of a lifetime – to escape their poor Irish farm and travel on the Titanic to a new life in America. Nora is to become a treasured governess for a rich family, while Delia has only a lowly maid's position. But when disaster strikes, and Nora dies, a small misunderstanding leads to Delia taking Nora's place as governess. As Delia grows closer to her charge, and the girl's father, will she be able to reveal the truth to find a chance at happiness?

One of the largest, fastest, and most beautiful ships in the world, the Andrea Doria was en route to New York from Italy. Departing from the United States was the much smaller Stockholm. On the foggy night of July 25, 1956, 53 miles southeast of Nantucket, the Stockholm sliced through the Doria's steel hull. Within minutes, the sea was pouring into the Italian liner. Eleven hours later, she capsized and sank into the ocean.

“Another blockbuster! Thomas Jefferson and the Tripoli Pirates reads like an edge-of-your-seat, page-turning thriller. You will love this book and also wonder why so few people know this story. No one captures the danger, intrigue, and drama of the American Revolution and its aftermath like...

Long before Robinson Crusoe became a novel, real people faced the open sea alone. This is not a retelling of fiction. It is the quiet, true history behind one of literature's most enduring ideas: what happens when a person is left entirely alone.

In the bestselling tradition of The Perfect Storm and The Finest Hours, “an exquisitely written and dramatic book…a literary page-turner” (Doug Stanton, #1 New York Times bestselling author of Horse Soldiers)—the 2015 mysterious disappearance of the SS El Faro, a gigantic American cargo...

Admiral Stavridis, a leader in military, international affairs, and national security circles, shares his love of the sea and some of the sources of that affection. The Sailor's Bookshelf offers synopses of fifty books that illustrate the history, importance, lore, and lifestyle of the oceans and of those who "go down to the sea in ships." Divided into four main categories, Admiral Stavridis's choices will appeal to "old salts" and to those who have never known the sights of the ever-changing seascape, nor breathed the tonic of an ocean breeze. 

Two Years Before the Mast is Richard Henry Dana Jr.’s captivating account of life as a common sailor on board a merchant ship in the early 1830s. Dana captures the cruel conditions on board the ship, the injustices of merchant seamen at the hands of brutally unforgiving captains, and the treacherous icy weather at Cape Horn. An iconic maritime memoir said to have influenced Herman Melville, Two Years Before the Mast remains one of America’s greatest and most vivid seafaring tales.

"Very occasionally a tragedy turns into a triumph. This wonderful, searing book is such a moment. Rush to read it & be thankful." – Miriam Margolyes Last night Ben phoned from Bermuda, collect as usual. I’d asked – though heaven knows why, as we avoid soppy talk – if he still loved me...

Top 10 Pirate Myths takes you beyond the Hollywood sparkle and storybook charm to uncover the surprising truths behind history’s most misunderstood outlaws. Drawing on real historical records, maritime journals, and eyewitness accounts, Jasmine Dyggan separates fact from fantasy and reveals the remarkable human stories buried beneath centuries of myth.

Waiting in the night, hidden behind a remote island, no lights showing, pirates would lure unsuspecting ships into unknown waters. Then they would silently slide up to them and board the ship. The crew would be killed and the bodies thrown over the side, weighted down with chains. The pirates would take the cargo, sink or burn the ship, and then, just as quietly, sail away into the night. Dead men tell no tales, nor do they testify in court.

War at Sea is a dramatic global tour of this remote museum and other formerly lost traces of humanity's naval heritage. It is also an account by the world's leading naval archaeologist of how underwater exploration has discovered these remains, thus resolving mysteries, adding to our understanding of the past, and providing intimate details of the experience of naval warfare. 

From the author of In the Hurricane's Eye and Valiant Ambition, the riveting and critically acclaimed bestseller and a major motion picture starring Chris Hemsworth, directed by Ron Howard. Chris Hemsworth, Cillian Murphy, Ben Whishaw, and Brendan Gleeson star in a film based on this National...

Two Years Before the Mast, written by Richard Henry Dana, provides a vivid account of "the life of a common sailor at sea". Dana sails from Boston, around Cape Horn, stopping in several ports along the California coast including San Diego, San Pedro, Santa Barbara, and San Francisco. On the return trip around Cape Horn in the middle of the Antarctic winter Dana describes terrifying storms and incredible beauty, giving vivid descriptions of icebergs and the scurvy that afflicts members of the crew.

A story of tragedy at sea where every desperate act meant life or death The small ship making the Liverpool-to-New York trip in the early months of 1856 carried mail, crates of dry goods, and more than one hundred passengers, mostly Irish emigrants. Suddenly an iceberg tore the ship asunder and...

Bloomsbury presents Uncommon Courage by Julia Jones, read by Mark Meadows. An extraordinary account of heroism and sacrifice. An unexpected and important story, rivetingly told. Rip roaring stuff. Get this into the paws of the sea dog in your life.' – Griff Rhys Jones 'A book that had to be...

Launched in 1914, two years after the ill-fated voyage of her sister ship, RMS Titanic, the Britannic was intended to be superior to her tragic twin in every way. But war intervened and in 1915 she was requisitioned as a hospital ship. Just one year later, while on her way to collect troops wounded in the Balkans campaign, she fell victim to a mine laid by a German U-boat and tragically sank in the middle of the Aegean Sea. There her wreck lay, at a depth of 400 feet, until it was discovered fifty-nine years later by legendary explorer Jacques Cousteau. 

For more than 5,000 years, the seas have challenged, rewarded and punished the brave sailors who set forth to explore it. This history of the seas and sailing tells the remarkable story of those individuals—whether they lived to tell the tale themselves or not. From the early Polynesian seafarers and the first full circumnavigations of the globe, to explorers picking their way through the coral reefs of the West Indies, this audiobook tells the compelling story of life at sea that lies behind man's search for new lands, new trade, conquest and uncharted waters.

A stunning behind-the-curtain look into the last years of the illegal transatlantic slave trade in the United States. 

Ruim vier eeuwen geleden zwermden Nederlandse schepen en hun bemanningen uit over de wereldzeeën. Ze voeren naar het noorden, over de Atlantische Oceaan naar het westen en rond Kaap Hoorn en voorbij Kaap de Goede Hoop naar Azië. Ze dreven handel, gingen de strijd aan met Europese concurrenten, onderwierpen goed- of kwaadschiks inheemse volken en stichtten nederzettingen en koloniën. Het vervoer van goederen en mensen via het water was in veel opzichten bepalend voor de ontwikkeling van scheepstypen, navigatiemiddelen en handelsnetwerken.

The first full review of the mass murder by crew members on the slave ship Zong and the lasting repercussions of this horrifying event On November 29, 1781, Captain Collingwood of the British ship Zong commanded his crew to throw overboard one-third of his cargo: a shipment of Africans bound for...

The most important place in American nuclear history are the Marshall Islands - an idyllic Pacific paradise that served as the staging ground for more than 60 US nuclear tests. It was here, from 1946 to 1958, that America perfected the weapon that preserved the peace of the post-war years. It was here - with the 1954 Castle Bravo test over Bikini Atoll - that America executed its largest nuclear detonation, a thousand times more powerful than Hiroshima. 

Brought to you by Penguin. Almost everyone has heard of the Vikings: scouring the coasts of Europe in their longships, with plunder and pillage. Those raiders were real and deserved their reputation, but in fact they were only ever a small minority of the Scandinavians. ‘Viking’ comes from...

In 1808, an American merchant ship happened upon an uncharted island in the South Pacific and unwittingly solved the biggest nautical mystery of the era: the whereabouts of a band of fugitives who, after seizing their vessel, had disappeared into the night with their Tahitian companions. Seven generations later, the island is still inhabited by descendants of the original mutineers, marooned like modern castaways.