Maritime History & Piracy

There were over 700 survivors of the Titanic disaster and their horrific experience has captivated readers and moviegoers for over 100 years. But what was it actually like for a woman to say goodbye to her husband? For a mother to leave her teenage sons?...

__________Available now: the biggest and best quiz book about the deep blue!__________Think you know the difference between a ship and a boat? Do you really understand the shipping forecast? And what do all the different flags at sea mean?The Nautical...

In the depths of Antarctic winter, hundreds of miles from land or rescue, a small fishing boat is swallowed by waves as high as houses. The captain is fatally slow to act, and then paralyzed by fear. The officers flee for their lives. Only the actions of...

There is something strangely compelling about the waterways. Isolated places on the edge of society, they have always had their own distinctive way of life and a certain shady reputation. Ever since the earliest days, canals have attracted crime, with...

Discover the "fascinating and outrageously readable" account of the roguish acts of the first pirates to raid the Pacific in a crusade that ended in a sensational trial back in England-perfect for readers of Nathaniel Philbrick and David McCullough...

'A joyously peculiar book' - The New York Times'A fascinating insight into Icelandic culture and a fresh perspective on her global influence. Warning: may well make readers wish they were Icelandic, too.' - Helen Russell, author of The Year of Living...

The Command of the Ocean describes with unprecedented authority and scholarship the rise of Britain to naval greatness, and the central place of the Navy and naval activity in the life of the nation and government. It describes not just battles, voyages...

An extraordinary collection of interviews with lighthouse keepers and their families, in their own words - a record of a vanished profession and a vanished Britain of the 1970s. Described by William Golding as "one of the most fascinating social...

The slave ship was the instrument of history's greatest forced migration and a key to the origins and growth of global capitalism, yet much of its history remains unknown. Marcus Rediker uncovers the extraordinary human drama that played out on this...

For more than 400 years, the big-gun warship stood as the supreme naval war machine. It was not only a major instrument of warfare, but a visible emblem of a nation's power, wealth and pride. Battleships features 52 of the greatest warships to have...

Apologies but we at Booksplease don't have a full description for this book.Book InformationISBN 9781909540194Author Nicholas LeachFormat PaperbackPage Count 72Imprint Foxglove Publishing LtdPublisher Foxglove Publishing Ltd

This new account explores the most notorious pirates in history and how their rise and fall can be traced back to a single pirate haven, Nassau. Angus Konstam, one of the world's leading pirate experts, has brought his 30 years of research to create...

Apologies but we at Booksplease don't have a full description for this book.Book InformationISBN 9780995541214Author Paul BrownFormat PaperbackPage Count 200Imprint SuperelasticPublisher Superelastic

Sunday Times Bestseller and Blackwell's Non-Fiction Book of the Month.The extraordinary story of how the Endurance, Sir Ernest Shackleton's ship, was found in the most hostile sea on Earth, told by the expedition's Director of Exploration.'Bound has a...

Now a major television documentary (Channel 4, 2021)The epic mission to destroy Hitler's flagship.'Bismarck was now loose in the Atlantic ... we had to find and sink her.'May, 1941. The most powerful battleship the world has ever seen, the German Navy's...

A compendium of fascinating information about the great waters that cover two-thirds of our Earth and the men and women that sailed them.Breverton's Nautical Curiosities is about ships, people and the sea. However, unlike many other nautical...

Apologies but we at Booksplease don't have a full description for this book.Book InformationISBN 9781789070804Author Colin TuckerFormat PaperbackImprint AcairPublisher AcairWeight(grams) 1200g

The Rescue Ships and the Convoys tells the history of one of the least known aspects of Second World War maritime history. Despite the threat of heavy losses of ships and lives, no hospital ships, which had to be lit, could accompany the convoys as they...

As remarkable as Columbus and the conquistador expeditions, the history of Portuguese exploration is now almost forgotten. But Portugal's navigators cracked the code of the Atlantic winds, launched the expedition of Vasco da Gama to India and beat...

In 1845, British explorer Sir John Franklin set out on a voyage to find the North-West Passage - the sea route linking the Atlantic Ocean to the Pacific. The expedition was expected to complete its mission within three years and return home in triumph...

'A wonderfully quirky history' SUNDAY TIMES'The perfect read while you wait for your summer holiday to begin' MAIL ON SUNDAY'Quippy anecdotes are woven with historical reference and geographical context to give full colour' IRISH TIMESA bulwark against...

Can you escape the sinking Titanic? Make your way up the decks with this exhilarating adventure puzzle book.     This exciting escape book is a bustling collection of puzzles set on the Titanic during its sinking in the early hours of 15 April 1912. To...

The Titanic. The Britannic. The Olympic. They are some of the most famous ships in history, but for the wrong reasons. The Olympic Class liners were conceived as the largest, grandest ships ever to set sail. Of the three ships built, the first only...

Winner of the Australia and New Zealand Law and History Society (ANZLHS) Prize for 2023 Maritime workers occupy a central place in global labour history. This new and compelling account from Australia, shows seafaring and waterside unions engaged in a...

In the Age of Sail scurvy was responsible for more deaths at sea than piracy, shipwreck and all other illnesses, and its cure ranks among the greatest of military successes - yet its impact on history has mostly been ignored.Stephen Bown searches back to...

In Empire's Crossroads, Carrie Gibson offers readers a vivid, authoritative and action-packed history of the Caribbean. For Gibson, everything was created in the West Indies: the Europe of today, its financial foundations built with sugar money: the...

An award-winning investigation into the strange and secretive world of international shipping 'Arresting, sharply observed, deeply researched and compelling... Plenty of books promise to reveal the secrets of little-known worlds but few actually...

In the tradition of Dava Sobel's 'Longitude' comes sailing expert David Barrie's compelling and dramatic tale of invention and discovery - an eloquent elegy to one of the most important navigational instruments ever created, and the daring mariners who...

As the crow flies'', ''chunder'', ''cold enough to freeze the balls off a brass monkey'', ''three sheets to the wind'' - many terms like these are used in everyday English language conversation and writing. But how many landlubbers know that they derive...

Did you ever wonder which civilisation first took to water in small craft? Who worked out how to measure distance or plot a course at sea? Or why the humble lemon rose to such prominence in the diets of sailors? Taking one hundred objects that have...

'Just incredible' Naomi Klein'Gripping and shocking...with the pace of a thriller' The TimesA New York Times bestseller, The Outlaw Ocean is a riveting, adrenalin-fuelled tour of a vast, lawless and rampantly criminal world that few have ever seen: the...

From the coast of Southern Europe to Morocco and the Ottoman states of Algiers, Tunis and Tripoli, Christian and Muslim seafarers met in bustling ports to swap religions, to battle and to trade goods and sales - raiding as far as Ireland and Iceland in...

Sandcastles, donkeys, piers and sticks of rock. Beach huts, paddle steamers, promenade shelters and ice cream cones. Our modern seaside is the sum of its parts and all those parts have their history. This book explores the best-loved features of our...

'A roaring tale ... remains as vivid and exciting today as it was on publication in 1697' GuardianThe pirate and adventurer William Dampier circumnavigated the globe three times, and took notes wherever he went. This is his frank, vivid account of his...

I ran out on the deck and then I could see ice. It was a veritable sea of ice and the boat was rocking over it. I should say that parts of the iceberg were eighty feet high, but it had been broken into sections, probably by our ship. There fell on the...

'A thrilling celebration of lighthouses' i newspaperAn enthralling history of Britain's rock lighthouses, and the people who built and inhabited themLighthouses are enduring monuments to our relationship with the sea. They encapsulate a romantic vision...

Launched in 1914, two years after the ill-fated voyage of her sister ship, RMS Titanic, the Britannic was intended to be superior to her tragic twin in every way. But war intervened and in 1915 she was requisitioned as a hospital ship. Just one year...

Fingal represented the last and final 'classic' style of tender once found throughout the three General Lighthouse Authorities of the British Isles. Performing a wide range of duties at Oban and at Stromness, Fingal served all the area needs of the...

A brilliant telling of the history of the common seaman in the age of sail, and his role in Britain's trade, exploration, and warfare"No other book resurrects the wooden world of Jack Tar in such captivating and voluminous detail."-Roger Ekirch, Wall...

When archaeologist John Henry Phillips volunteered with a charity that took D-Day veterans back to Normandy, due to an administrative error he found himself without a hotel room and reliant on the generosity of one of the veterans who had a spare bed...