Naval History

In his interesting and useful work, Thomas Tartaron has presented a brand new and quite original reassessment of the shipping world at the times of the Mycenaean Greeks, and we now talking about the Late Bronze Age. By all accounts the seafarers did enjoy the marine connections with other peoples as distant as Sicily and Egypt. Such the long-distance relationships have been celebrated and subjected to numerous close studies.

By contrast, unfortunately, the live and vibrant worlds of local marine interaction as well as exploration of the seas have been mainly ignored. The author argues that subject local maritime networks presented in the forms of "small worlds" or "coastscapes" are in fact much more representative of the true content of life of Mycenaean. In this title, he is offering readers a complete template of methodological and also conceptual instruments to recover tha small worlds mentioned above together with the human communities that used to inhabit them.

He did a great job trying to combine the archaeological, geo-archaeological and also anthropological approaches with the network theory and ancient papers to demonstrate the application of that scheme in the numerous case studies. The publication presents absolutely new perspectives and challenges for all professionals and enthusiasts of archaeology interesting in maritime connectivity.

This book by Ronald Love is representing a remarkably useful survey of the European expansion and exploration that took place during the early modern historical period and thorough examination of this development. The text contained in this volume combines the factual historical information with the analysis and interpretation; as a result, the book become very informative, easy- and interesting to read.

Apart from the main text, there are lots of supplementary information included in the publication, for example biographical profiles, excerpts fro the important historical documents, and even the glossary. For sure, students and all people with the interest in the naval history will definitely find this book very useful when searching for the information or conducting researches on the maritime exploration.

The author has described the early Portuguese expeditions that were taken along the coast of Africa; in addition, he also addressed the discovery of Americas by Spanish mariners, exploration of the Pacific, and the expeditions made to search for a northern marine passage to China. The narrative chapters of the book will guide the readers from the exploration of Mongol Empire by Marco Polo to Magellan's travel around the globe and all other historically important events. This is a treasure for any naval history enthusiast.

The present volume was worked out and released with the ultimate intention of its authors to conduct a thorough exploration of the maritime-related mechanics of the Empire, making an attempt to demonstrate how exactly the different aspects of this enterprise have been made to "work".

The chapters of the book showing that the emergence and works of the professional hydrographic services in the Navy and the ways both commercial and political imperatives assisted in driving the maritime surveying, have been considered central to that. The British Admiralty did support the exploration as well as the investigation of geographical expeditions undertaken by such famous characters of the past as Captain Cook and Charles Darwin.

In fact, we may say that the maritime expeditions of the Captain Cook's "Endeavour" and Darwin's "Beagle" were partly concerned with the interest of the Empire. And that was one of the reason why the "Manual of Scientific Enquiry" was developed and published by the British Admiralty to be of help for the naval officers.

One of the aims of this volume was to examined the marine technologies made the great studies in the XIX century. In the beginning of the nineteenth century, most of the vessels crossing the Atlantic were wooden, having a displacement of just a few hundred tons, relying on the sails and winds, and having no contact with the land...

Here is an excellent re-print of the John Pryor's book which brings together an imposing mass of data related to the shipping in Mediterranean Sea of the medieval times. This study will be found very useful for all people seriously interested in the early modern history of that area. The book focuses on oceanographic and meteorological conditions in the Mediterranean, it shows all limitations faced by the oar and sailing vessels over a thousand years ago and explains how those limitations impacted on naval warfare and piracy and influenced sea trade and travel.

The content of the book is very easy-to-read and well-written bringing together a huge amount of useful information relating to the maritime shipping in the medieval Mediterranean sea. The publication contains the results of the very serious study conducted with the intention to fill in the existing information gaps and provide interested people with a complete panorama. This book presents a very powerful example of how useful it can be to make careful studies of both geographical and technical influences.

The publication considers the relevant technological limitations of the shipping traffic in conjunction with the specific geographical conditions within which vessels were operating and description of how those conditions led to establishing of the important sea lanes of safe and effective shipping. 

If, as Winston Churchill famously remarked, Admiral John Jellicoe was the only and unique person who could have lost the Great War in an afternoon, then by extension Admiral Reinhard Scheer was the man who could have achieved victory in so few hours. Reinhard Scheer, the longest serving of the four wartime commanders of Imperial Germany's High Sea Fleet, was one of the most influential wartime German naval officers.

His thirty-two months commanding the fleet covered some of the critically important events not only of the sea war, but also the entire conflict - the Battle of Jutland or Skagerrakschlacht, and the Germanese resumption of the unrestricted submarine warfare which was instrumental in bringing in America on the side of the Entente powers. In August 1918 Scheer was promoted to Chef des Admiralstabs (Chief of the Naval Staff) after the incumbent. Admiral Hennine von Holtzendorff. tendered his resignation to the Kaiser in late July owing to ill-health. He remained in this position until the end of the war, before resigning from his post on 14 November, and retiring from the navy on 17 December. Born in 1863, Scheer joined the Imperial Navy as a cadet in 1879 and his career path followed the usual combination of RMS Lusitania caused a serious diplomatic crisis with the US in May 1915.

In January 1916 von Pohl was taken ill and relieved of his command. He would die of liver cancer before the end of February. On 18 January Reinhard Scheer was appointed as the Commander-in-Chief of the whole High Sea Fleet. Within the navy fleet he was widely acknowledged as being the best choice and a man of action. Scheer was determined to inject a new lease of life into the German naval campaign in the North Sea and while the Grand Fleet still needed to be avoided, except for in favorable circumstances, he envisaged a much more aggressive use of surface and U-boat forces backed up by Zeppelins for advanced reconnaissance.

The Kaiser approved Scheer !s plans and the first operation in late April was another coastal bombardment by German battle cruisers. this time of Lowestoft and Yarmouth, designed to destroy any forces sent out to defend against the German attack. In the event the bombardment did little damage while an opportunity was missed to inflict damage on the weaker British Harwich Force.

The invention of the steam engines was definitely one of the events deservedly considered most significant and important to the whole development of the modern human civilization; its impact on the course of North American history alone was as direct and powerful as its own mechanical action. This creation is one of the simplest and, at the same time, most beautiful power mechanisms that man has ever devised; to me all other machines pale by comparison.

This is an engine with a number of cylinders with a piston travels straight back and forth inside each of the cylinders, i.e. "reciprocating". Steam, being admitted and exhausted alternately at both ends of the piston stroke, pushes the piston forward and back, making each stroke a power stroke—a unique feature of the reciprocating engine. It means that the force is transmitted directly from the piston to either a wheel or a crankshaft by a system of rods and cranks, creating a sublime precision of movement.

The fact that there are no gears or transmission makes this the only engine with equal power both in forward and in reverse, and enables it to move anything provided there is enough steam for pushing the piston. A nice and interesting publication to be there on the bookshelf of any lover of history.

The publication offers its readers a thoroughly researched and rendered account of the very first incarnation of the US Navy fleet. In telling us this sprawling and really fascinating story, the author of the volume, Tim McGrath, does not lose a due sight of the human dimension of the subject. The author has also mined the archival sources mainly neglected in most of the previously told stories.

And, his application of such approach has eventually resulted in a very interesting and readable history of the integral aspect of the subject campaign for the US independence. The content of the book has one far beyond the usual "spotlight" treatment of major historical events and offers the readers a series of mini-stories illuminating all important aspects of the colonial America's desperate and difficult struggle at sea.

The interested readers all around the planet have already found this book as a very well-written and nicely illustrated; the publication also contains the extensive footnotes and an index, together with the bibliography proposed for the further reading. The informative and even entertaining volume telling us a story about the dedicated historical heroes who did risk their lives trying to overcome all the obstacles that were posed by the ruthlessly efficient British Navy fleet as well as American politicians. All people interested in naval history will enjoy this title.

This nice historical book has been prepared by the recognized and professional naval historian Antonia MacArthur, who is mainly specializing in the restoration and replication of the most famous vessels of the past. The publication tells the readers the captivating real story of this vessels and ninety-four people who made that remarkable voyage.

The author has researched the story of the HM Endeavour in detail and illustrated the texts with numerous contemporary paintings, adding the nautical charts and relevant drawings and sketches; moreover, mote that there are many photos of the replica ship. As we said, this book describes not only the famous bark but also pays much attention to the people who sailed. The author has did her best trying to highlight the whole excitement of discovery to new geographical areas and new people, new animals and plants. Many interesting extracts taken from the original shipboard logs and records have also been included in the book.

That is why we are pretty sure that this publication will present interest not only to the professional maritime historians but in fact to anyone with the interest in the naval history, famous marine ships of the past times, sea voyages made centuries ago, sea adventures, geographic discoveries and everything else related to the sea and the ship.