Ships

New York: Greenwich House, 1983. Reprint edition (different publisher). First Printing [Stated]. Hardcover. Good. The format is approximately 8.5 inches by 11.75 inches. 336 pages. Illustrations (some in color). Maps. Appendix. Index. No dust jacket present. Ink notation on the fep. Cover has some wear and soiling. This is a heavy item and if shipped outside of the United States will require additional shipping charges. Recounts man's attempts to meet the challenges of the sea from the log boats used in early times to the nuclear-propulsion ships of today, featuring over one thousand detailed line and color drawings of ocean-going vessels The contents include Introduction; from the tree trunk to the sail; the kingdom of the oar; the north sea; the shipyards of the Mediterranean; the conquest of the oceans; the golden age of the sail; the steam revolution; world war I; the merchant marine; war on the seas again; today's navy; tomorrow's adventure. The authors collaborated on a number of nautical and military topics. A single-volume world history focusing on the development of vessels from prehistoric times to the 1970s. The majority of the book is surprisingly readable. This book is definitely a good place to start for someone wanting to understand how ships developed differently in terms of geography. The early chapters move around geographically covering vessels used by the Egyptians, the Vikings, the Greeks, and Romans, etc. In addition to the ships, the narrative looks at some famous voyages of discovery and how trade routes on the ocean were established. By the middle third of the book, the focus is mostly on the Age of Discovery and the expansion of the European colonial empires. The last third of the book details the transition from sail to steam power, the growth, and decline of the grand ocean liners, and it finally ends with an examination of the world wars and oceanographic research vessels. There is some narrative devoted to famous naval battles throughout history. It's more about the development of ships. The appendices of the book also contain a lot of interesting information. For example, one contains a tabulated list of the number of vessels of each major world navy at the start of WWII. The information on the more "modern" vessels is generic whereas the information provided on the prehistoric or ancient vessels is more grounded in archeological data. Overall, the text is well-written and contains a good amount of detail for the researcher or someone looking to start learning about the development of ships. Far from the boring and dry data of many reference books, Ships contains a fluid narrative illustrated with a nice variety of drawings.