Ship History

NEW YORK TIMES BESTSELLER The shocking true story of the USS Houston, FDR’s legendary lost cruiser, and the epic saga of the survivors who faced one of World War II’s most brutal ordeals—from the acclaimed author of The Last Stand of the Tin Can Sailors “Captivating [and]...

“An engrossing intellectual history . . . [A] nuanced unraveling of sometimes dauntingly tangled ideas [with] always crisp prose.” —Wall Street Journal “Provocative . . . essential reading for today’s polarized times.” —Henry Louis Gates, Jr. “This is a brilliant conceit...

What happens when Blackbeard meets Jesse James? When a monstrous storm erupts over Nassau Harbor, Blackbeard, Anne Bonny, and Calico Jack are ripped through time itself — and thrown into the brutal world of the American Wild West. San Francisco, 1873. Six-shooters rule the frontier. Outlaws roam the rails. And the world has no place for pirates. To survive, the crew of the Queen Anne’s Revenge must trade cutlasses for revolvers, dodge bounty hunters, and chase treasure across a lawless new frontier. But as enemies close in from every direction, Blackbeard may discover the Wild West is ...

America’s most decorated warship of World War II, Enterprise was constantly engaged against the Japanese Empire, earning the title “the fightingest ship” in the navy. Her career was eventful, vital, and short. Commissioned in 1938, her bombers sank a submarine just ten days after the Pearl Harbor attack, claiming the first Japanese vessel lost in the war.

⚓ Dive into the Fascinating World of Maritime Engineering and Innovation! ⚓ Embark on a thrilling adventure through the captivating history and groundbreaking innovations of maritime engineering. From the ancient beginnings of Mesopotamian and Egyptian engineering, to the ingenious inventions of the modern world, "Maritime Engineering and Innovation" is your gateway to the technological advancements that shaped human history, cultivated our understanding of the oceans, and transformed the way we voyage across the seas. Unravel the mysteries of the sea and learn about: The powerful ...

NATIONAL BESTSELLER An NPR Best Book of the Year “Gorgeous.... With her trademark passion, wit, and fierce feminism, Natalie Haynes gives much-needed voice to the silenced women of the Trojan War.”—Madeline Miller, author of Circe Shortlisted for the Women’s Prize for Fiction, a gorgeous...

⛏️ REVISED AND EXPANDED EDITION! ⛏️ ⛏️ THE MOST EPIC AND EXPANSIVE NORSE MYTHOLOGY BIBLE ON AMAZON!⛏️ ⛏️ DOUBLE THE PAGES OF OTHER BOOKS!⛏️ This sprawling thirty-chapter book includes all major tales of Norse Mythology. From Thor and mischievous Loki to the twilight of the gods known as Ragnarök. Also included is the decryption of Runes, exploring Spells, Ásatrú, European history, warfare, ancient inspirations, to even expansive pages from the ancient book known as Poetic Edda. Each chapter will include stunning paintings to kindle the ancient Viking dreams... To ...

In a chilling exploration of a nearly forgotten chapter of history, Marcus Rediker delves into the dark depths of slave ships in the 18th century. In this widely praised history of an infamous institution, award-winning scholar Marcus Rediker shines a light into the darkest corners of the...

Set sail on a gripping journey through one of history’s most extraordinary empires. The History of the Portuguese Empire: Ships, Souls, and Silver brings to life the rise and fall of a maritime kingdom that reshaped the world. From stormy Atlantic coasts to the spice-scented ports of India, from the jungles of Brazil to the fortified enclaves of Africa and Asia, Portugal’s empire stretched across continents.

The "unsinkable” Titanic was four city blocks long, with a French “sidewalk café,” private promenade decks, and the latest, most ingenious safety devices… but only twenty lifeboats for the 2,207 passengers and crew on board.

Gliding through a calm sea, disdainful of all obstacles, the Titanic brushed an iceberg. Two hours and forty minutes later, she upended and sank. Only 705 survivors were picked up from the half-filled boats of “the ship that God Himself couldn’t sink.”

Do you think the ocean is a dangerous place? Yes, it can be. Titanic…Amoco Cadiz…Herald of Free Enterprise…Exxon Valdez…every shipwreck tells a story. Veteran sea captain Beetashok Chatterjee reveals the stories behind 13 of the greatest civilian maritime disasters, outside the realms of war, that shook the world. Not just for the number of lives lost, but in some cases the damage caused to the environment and livelihoods, or the media attention those incidents garnered. Allow him to take you back in time and on the high seas, where you can watch and learn from these disasters—...

A Best Book of the Year from The Observer Narrated by the New York Times bestselling author Natalie Haynes herself, this audiobook is an extraordinary reimagining of the myth of Medea. This is what no one tells you, in the songs sung about Jason and the Argo. This part of his quest has been...

In April 1956, a refitted oil tanker carried 58 shipping containers from Newark to Houston. From that modest beginning, container shipping developed into a huge industry that made the boom in global trade possible. The Box tells the dramatic story of the container's creation, the decade of struggle before it was widely adopted, and the sweeping economic consequences of the sharp fall in transportation costs that containerization brought about.

In July 1545, Henry VIII watched as one of the proudest warships of his reign sank in the Solent. The Mary Rose was not an ordinary vessel. Built during Henry’s naval revolution, she represented England’s move from temporary sea power to a permanent royal fleet. She carried guns, soldiers, sailors, craftsmen, and the political ambition of a king who wanted the sea itself to become an instrument of Tudor power. Then, during the Battle of the Solent, she heeled, took water, and sank with terrifying speed. Hundreds of men were trapped and drowned within sight of the English coast. Mary ...

In Ghost Ships: Volume II – Echoes on the Open Sea, readers are taken deeper into the world’s most chilling maritime mysteries. From abandoned vessels found with no crew aboard to ships that vanished without a single distress call, this second volume uncovers new cases, forgotten legends, and modern enigmas that continue to puzzle historians and investigators alike. Drawing on historical records, official inquiries, and eyewitness accounts, this book carefully separates fact from folklore. It explores the real dangers faced by sailors—violent storms, navigational errors, war, piracy, ...

Out of nothing but the government’s behest, a few bold men conjured a giant ship-building industry in 1940 and launched the ships that took America to war and to victory. In 1940, the shadow of war loomed large over American life. President Roosevelt understood that it wasn’t a matter of if...

Hoist the mizzenmast and batten down those bloody hatches: Pirates! Scoundrels Who Shook the World tells the hilarious-but-true adventures of history’s most amazing pirates.

"Ryōma!" tells the life story of Sakamoto Ryōma, one of the great figures in the turmoil that engulfed Japan in the years before the 1868 Meiji Restoration. The novel is a masterwork by the prolific historical novelist Shiba Ryōtarō and has sold more than 24 million copies in Japan since publication in 1966—and still counting! The novel has everything: a winning main character, an action-packed plot, swordfights, and romance, but it is also a fascinating, easy-to-digest history lesson about Japan’s response to the shocking arrival of United States Commodore Matthew Perry’s “...

A propulsive human drama that chronicles the mass exodus of Jews from Eastern Europe to America in the early years of the twentieth century, and the men who made it possible. Over thirty years, from 1890 to 1921, 2.5 million Jews, fleeing discrimination and violence in their homelands of Eastern...

A definitive, sweeping account of the Underground Railroad’s long-overlooked maritime origins, from a pre-eminent scholar of Atlantic history and the award-winning author of The Slave Ship As many as 100,000 enslaved people fled successfully from the horrors of bondage in the antebellum South...