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A Short History of Seafaring

Paying tribute to the ‘essential contribution of sailors and their ships to the evolving history of the human world’, Brian Lavery’s history begins with the early Polynesians’ outrigger canoes on the Pacific, Minoan ships in the Mediterranean and Vikings crossing the north Atlantic. He traces the progress of traders, explorers, conquerors, slavers and colonizers, and describes historic maritime events such as the invention of the sea clock and the Cuban Missile Crisis, up to today’s container ships, pirates and refugee ‘boat people’.
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RRP £9.99

£5.99

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Product information:
  • Publisher: DK
  • Year: 2019
  • Format: Paperback
  • Pages: 400pp
  • Illustrated: Yes
  • Dimensions: 196x126mm
  • ISBN: 9780241379691
  • Condition: New
  • Weight: 0.3kg
Product code:
514559
Product information
Full publisher description
Discover over 5000 years of seafaring history, packed with first-hand accounts of triumphs and disasters

A fascinating journey through more than 5,000 years of seafaring history in this essential guide to the most impressive seafaring tales, explorers, and maritime environments.

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 book tells the compelling story of life at sea that lies behind man's search for new lands, new trade, conquest, and uncharted waters.

Charting the great milestones of nautical history from the discovery of America to the establishment of the Royal Navy, the naval history of the American Civil War, the Battle of Midway and modern piracy the book sets all of them in their cultural and historical context.

Previously published as The Conquest of the Ocean, A Short History of Seafaring is a unique compendium of awe-inspiring tales of epic sea voyages and great feats of seamanship, navigation, endurance, and ingenuity.
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