Maritime Exploration

Over the years, thousands of tales both true and fantastic have been told about the dastardly thievery of pirates. Their rum-drunk exploits and high-seas violence never fail to delight. Now in a brand new series collection, The Best Pirate Stories Ever Told includes many of the very best pirate yarns ever created on history’s most debaucherous scalawags. Anyone who loves a good story full of excitement, adventure, thrills, and laughs will find this collection irresistible.

Set against the backdrop of the Age of Exploration, Black Flags, Blue Waters reveals the dramatic and surprising history of American piracy's "Golden Age" when lawless pirates plied the coastal waters of North America and beyond. Best-selling author Eric Jay Dolin illustrates how American colonists at first supported these outrageous pirates in an early display of solidarity against the Crown, and then violently opposed them. Upending popular misconceptions and cartoonish stereotypes, Dolin provides this wholly original account of these seafaring outlaws.

What happens when the ocean refuses to give up its dead? The sea is a vast, unforgiving wilderness, and for centuries it has been the setting for some of history’s most baffling and tragic mysteries. From the deck of the world's most infamous ghost ship to the crushing depths of the Atlantic, this book uncovers the chilling true stories of the vessels and souls that vanished without a trace. Step aboard the Mary Celeste, found drifting and eerily deserted. Investigate the colossal disappearance of the USS Cyclops in the heart of the Bermuda Triangle. Witness the final, harrowing hours of ...

Beneath the waves lie stories the world was never meant to forget. From the doomed voyage of the Titanic to the eerie silence of the Mary Celeste, Drowned in Silence dives deep into fifteen of the most chilling, mysterious, and tragic sea disasters ever recorded. Author James Calloway brings each tale to life with immersive, emotional storytelling that will haunt readers long after the final page. Survival. Mystery. Loss. The sea remembers everything.

In the great wars of modern history, maritime powers have always prevailed over land-based empires, whether Habsburg, Napoleonic, Nazi, or Soviet. In contrast to the rigid hierarchies and centralization of land-based empires, those nations attaining mastery at sea have been distinguished by liberty, flexibility, and enterprise. The 17th-century Dutch were the first to achieve naval and trading dominance.

A gripping biography of one of the seventeenth century’s greatest sea captains. Courage, ambition and treachery on the high seas… Perfect for fans of Andrew Lambert, Kevin Jackson, N. A. M. Rodger, and Eric Jay Dolin. In June 1611, Henry Hudson, captain of the Discovery, his young son, and seven other crew members were forced into a small gig and set adrift amongst the ice floes of Hudson Bay. They were never seen again. Shy and aloof, yet courageous and sometimes recklessly daring, English explorer and navigator Hudson made four momentous voyages in 1607, 1608, 1609, and 1610, journeys...

“A Perfect Storm for a new generation, Rachel Slade's Into the Raging Sea is a masterful page-turning account of the El Faro's sinking.” —Ben Mezrich, bestselling author of The Accidental Billionaires: The Founding of Facebook On October 1, 2015, Hurricane Joaquin barreled into the Bermuda...

Zheng He's Treasure Fleets: The Voyages That Could Have Changed the World In 1405, sixty years before Columbus crossed the Atlantic in a 60-foot ship with 90 men, China launched an armada of over 300 vessels and 27,000 crew into the Indian Ocean. The flagship was 400 feet long. The commander was a castrated slave who had risen to become the most powerful admiral in the world. His name was Zheng He. And the story of what he accomplished — and why China chose to stop — is one of the great untold dramas in world history. In this book, you'll discover: The extraordinary personal journey of ...

A supernatural thriller book set in the vast, eerie expanses of the Pacific Ocean during the late 19th century. "The Haunted Voyage" reveals a chilling tale of a cursed ship, the ill-fated St. John, set within the dramatic canvas of the Pacific deep. From the protagonist, Kelly's desperate step to join the crew to his horrifying ordeal towards the end, every detail is masterfully woven in this tale of maritime horror and supernatural terror. The On-Board ChillsAs quick as they set sail, the crew of the St. John, particularly Kelly, are plagued with inexplicably strange and terrifying ...

The thrill of the chase turns into a voyage of damnation. Captain Vorlag and his hardened pirates aboard the Sea Serpent are masters of the crimson tide, hunting for treasure. But when their relentless pursuit sails them into an eerie, unnatural calm, the familiar ocean whispers of an ancient dread. The hunt is over. Something else is hunting them. From the crushing abyssal depths, an unimaginable horror awakens. A creature of countless teeth and insatiable hunger begins its assault, turning their mighty vessel into a slaughterhouse. Trapped miles from land, under a sky that weeps blood, ...

In June 2023, the world watched as the Titan submersible vanished during a dive to the wreck of the Titanic. Days later, search teams discovered the unthinkable—Titan had suffered a catastrophic implosion, ending the lives of all five aboard. The tragedy gripped global headlines, sparked intense debate, and left many questionings how such a disaster could have happened in an era of advanced engineering and safety standards. This eBook tells the full story of Titan: its bold but unconventional design, the risks that were overlooked, and the leadership decisions that shaped its fate. It ...

""As thrilling as any tale from the heroic age of exploration. ... Bound’s account is a triumph. The storytelling is piano-wire taut, the writing saturated with polar moodiness."" ― Sunday Times The extraordinary story of how the Endurance, Ernest Shackleton's legendary lost ship, was found...

The year is 1585. England and Spain are moving toward open war. And John Davys — navigator, theorist, one of the most accomplished seamen of his age — is sailing north, looking for a passage through the Arctic ice that will open a new route to the riches of Asia. He will not find it. He will find instead something that no map yet contains: coastlines, currents, latitudes, the precise and dangerous truth of what lies beyond the edge of the known world. Dumas takes the extraordinary life of the historical John Davys — three Arctic voyages, the naming of a strait, service against the ...

Without warning, Russia starts an operation to seize control of a vital arctic waterway off the Alaska coast. For hot-wired naval aviator, Karen 'Bunny' O'Hare, it's about to be a bad day at the office. Not everyone takes impending nuclear Armageddon as calmly as O'Hare. From an airfield in...

What if the world’s oldest story was not a myth… but a memory? For thousands of years, the Garden of Eden has been told as a place of perfection, temptation, and loss. But what if Eden was more than a symbol? What if it was a real landscape—lush, fertile, and alive—now hidden beneath the waves? One Archaeologist’s Wild Hunt for the Garden of Eden takes you on an extraordinary journey alongside Dr. Yuri Zarins, a maverick scholar whose relentless search combined archaeology, geology, ancient texts, and space-age satellite technology to solve a mystery older than history itself. Few...

Trade is a lifeline, and it shapes the world. Big businesses contributed to the building of empires, and the empires, in turn, aided in the development of trade. From this, we know that a nexus was always there between big business and the kings. Trade binds people together and brings prosperity to all members of society. A common spice, pepper, had caused the Europeans to come to India and eventually rule it for over two hundred years. The Portuguese found a sea route to India thanks to Pepper, and the British and other European nations followed suit. The trade of pepper, sandal, and agar ...

In Voyagers, the distinguished anthropologist Nick Thomas charts the course of the seaborne migrations that populated the islands between the Americas and the western coast of Asia from late prehistory onwards: firstly the colonization by speakers of Austronesian languages of the western Pacific...

The eagerly awaited sequel to Blood on the Blade. When you live at the edge of the world with a volcano for a neighbour and bloodthirsty warriors who wish to end your existence then a voyage towards the edge of the world is possible. Seeking a new home for the Clan of the Fox, Erik the Navigator...

After traveling to the seaside kingdom of Lilah's betrothed prince, Lulath, Celie and her companions are busy training griffins, enjoying wedding festivities and finishing construction of a grand ship. But on their maiden voyage, the ship steers them far off course into uncharted waters. Celie...

Captain James Cook was one of the most skilled navigators of the eighteenth century, a man whose charts reshaped the world and whose voyages transformed the Pacific into a space legible to European power. Rising from modest beginnings in Yorkshire, Cook mastered the arts of navigation, surveying, and command with a discipline that set him apart from his contemporaries. His voyages mapped New Zealand and Australia’s eastern coastline with unprecedented precision, proved that scurvy could be controlled on long sea journeys, and established professional standards that influenced maritime ...