A History of the World in Twelve Shipwrecks
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- $16.99
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- $16.99
Publisher Description
'Masterful and entrancing - this is big history at its best.' Professor Alice Roberts, author of Ancestors
'A real-life Indiana Jones takes readers on a dive through these underwater museums, revealing the sunken secrets of the past' The Times
'Fascinating... wonderful material, well researched and placed in its wider context' Spectator
From a Bronze Age ship built during the age of Queen Nefertiti and filled with ancient treasures, a Viking warship made for King Cnut himself, Henry VIII's spectacular Mary Rose and the golden age of the Tudor court, to the exploration of the Arctic, the tragic story of HMS Terror and tales of bravery and endurance aboard HMS Gairsoppa in World War Two, these are the stories of some of the greatest underwater discoveries of all time. A rich and exciting narrative, this is not just the story of those ships and the people who sailed on them, the cargo and treasure they carried and their tragic fate. This is also the story of the spread of people, religion and ideas around the world, a story of colonialism and migration which continues today.
Drawing on decades of experience excavating shipwrecks around the world, renowned maritime archaeologist David Gibbins reveals the riches beneath the waves and shows us how the treasures found there can be a porthole to the past to tell a new story about the world and its underwater secrets.
PUBLISHERS WEEKLY
Maritime archaeologist and novelist Gibbins (Atlantis) delivers an entertaining and knowledgeable survey of world history with a seafaring spin. Profiling 12 sunken vessels, dating from the second millennium BCE to WWII, each of which preserves a specific slice of time—a degree of precision that he explains is not typical of most archaeological sites—Gibbins uses each wreck as a window onto that ship's wider historical context. The earliest shipwrecks shed light on ancient networking. For example, two swords recovered from Britain's Bronze Age Dover boat reveal the extent of the era's metal trade. The Plemmirio shipwreck off Sicily, dating to the height of the Roman Empire in the second century CE, provides insight on the personal lives of its sailors, which included a specialist surgeon who left behind several scalpel handles. Other chapters discuss how the Belitung Island wreck—a trading vessel of Arab origin found off the coast of Indonesia—exemplifies the spread of new inventions from China to the West in the 800s CE; and dig into Henry VIII's flagship the Mary Rose, an artifact-rich (nearly 200,000 well-preserved items have been recovered) slice of life from the Tudor period. A well-informed and dynamic narrator, Gibbins glides breezily between stories of his scuba dives and quotes from medieval Chinese poetry. History buffs will find this smooth sailing.
