The Conquest of the Ocean
An Illustrated History of Seafaring
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- $16.99
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- $16.99
Publisher Description
An engaging and vivid read by author and naval historian Brian Lavery, The Conquest of the Ocean tells the 5,000 year history of the remarkable individuals who sailed the seas for trade, to conquer new lands, and to explore the unknown. From the early Polynesian sailors to the first circumnavigations by the Portuguese and the British, The Conquest of the Ocean explores the lives of these sailors and their tales of epic sea voyages, great feats of seamanship, navigation, endurance, and ingenuity.
Explore the lives of famous land-seekers and globe-charters such as Christopher Columbus, Captain James Cook, and Vitus Bering through eyewitness accounts of their maritime adventures. Full color photographs, paintings, diagrams, and maps are woven into the text to help tell the compelling stories of life at sea that lie behind man's search for new lands, new trade, conquest, and uncharted waters.
From the conquest of Mexico to World War II, and the voyages of the Vikings to the Exxon Valdez crisis, The Conquest of the Ocean covers the history of ships and sailing in times of exploration, war, discovery, and disaster.
PUBLISHERS WEEKLY
Lavery (All Hands) presents a choppy survey of humanity's history on the seas in this far-ranging volume. The prolific British maritime historian begins about 30,000 years ago with Polynesian seafarers' colonization of Pacific islands and continues through to address harrowing accounts of modern-day piracy. Ports of call between these distant coasts include the treasure voyages of Ming official Zheng He, the discovery of the New World, the invention of the Fresnel lens, the Battle of Midway, and many others. Throughout the book, two-page insets highlight various technological milestones, such as the advent of the sextant and snapshots of the evolution of ships. Each receives a brief treatment and is sumptuously supplemented with maps and images. Yet like our understanding of the deep oceans themselves, Lavery's account is woefully incomplete a six-page section on whaling, for example, relies only on Captain Scoresby's accounts and fails to even mention Moby Dick or devote a single sentence to the importance of fishing over the course of human history. Similarly, the 17th-century wreck of the Batavia is treated to a whole chapter, while the fate of the Titanic is summed up in a captioned illustration and one line. This is an adequate introduction to the topic for nautical neophytes, but salty sailors should slake their thirst elsewhere. Color maps, photos, and illus. throughout.
