"A truly comprehensive publication, running the gamut from the first Atlantic sail-enhanced steamers to today's remaining handful of combi-liners." — Maritime MattersBefore the advent of the jet age, ocean liners were the principal means of transport around the globe, and carried migrants and business people, soldiers and administrators, families, and lone travelers to every corner of the world. Though the ocean liner was born on the North Atlantic it soon...

'There is no danger that Titanic will sink. The boat is unsinkable and nothing but inconvenience will be suffered by the passengers.' - Phillip Franklin, White Star Line Vice-PresidentOn April 15th, 1912, Titanic, the world's largest passenger ship, sank after colliding with an iceberg, claiming more than 1,500 lives. Walter Lord's classic bestselling history of the voyage, the wreck and the aftermath is a tour de force of detailed investigation a...

The modern image of the pirate is derived from Captain Charles Johnson's accounts of the cut-throats who sailed under the Jolly Roger. It was he who gave mythical status to the likes of Blackbeard and Captain Kidd. Using contemporary sources, Nigel Cawthorne now turns the spotlight on the reality of pirate life, revealing the truth behind the legends. It gives us an insight into the men - and women - their weapons, their ships, their unhappy victims and their hide-outs, including the capit...

'Goodbye Miss Young. Good luck to you and don't forget to remember me to the folks back home.'Major Archibald Butt (1865-1912)The sinking of the Titanic on her maiden voyage in 1912 is one of the most dramatic stories in maritime history. The largest passenger steamship in the world, fitted with more advanced safety features than any of her rivals, she was proclaimed to be virtually unsinkable.More than 1,500 people perished when th...

The Sinking of the Titanic and Great Sea Disasters is an exciting collection of first-hand stories describing the catastrophe of Titanic’s maiden voyage as told by its survivors shortly after the ship sank.Originally written and published in 1912, Logan Marshall’s book was the very first attempt to solve the mystery of the accident and relieve the heartache it stirred internationally. Marshall narrates the personal stories of Titanic’s passengers before, during, and after ...

The complete and definitive New York Times –bestselling chronicle of the Titanic, including survivors' stories and extensive research separating fact from myth.In just two hours and forty minutes, 1,500 souls were lost at sea when the RMS Titanic succumbed to the icy waters of the North Atlantic. Based on interviews with sixty-three survivors, A Night to Remember tells the story of that fateful night, o...

**An incredible true tale of espionage and engineering set at the height of the Cold War—a mix between The Hunt for Red October and Argo—about how the CIA, the U.S. Navy, and America’s most eccentric mogul spent six years and nearly a billion dollars to steal the nuclear-armed Soviet submarine K-129 after it had sunk to the bottom of the Pacific Ocean; all while the Russians were watching.In the early hours of February 25, 1968, a Russian submari...

SHORTLISTED FOR THE MARITIME MEDIA AWARDS 2014A monumental, wholly accessible work of scholarship that retells human history through the story of mankind's relationship with the sea.An accomplishment of both great sweep and illuminating detail, The Sea and Civilization is a stunning work of history that reveals in breathtaking depth how people first came into contact with one another by ocean and river, and how goods, languages, religions, and enti...

Although the answer appears obvious, there is far more to the sinking of the Titanic than is popularly understood. On 10 April 1912 Titanic - the largest and most luxurious ocean liner in the world - left Southampton on her maiden voyage. The only headlines she expected to make were on her triumphant arrival in New York. But just five days later, she was a wreck at the bottom of the North Atlantic, taking over 1500 lives with her. Why? The answer to this question is a set of circumstances ...

At one time British ships carried half of the world's trade, transporting every conceivable type of freight from and to all four corners of the globe – and in times of crisis the merchant fleet has also offered military assistance. In fact, the merchant convoys and armed cruisers that defied the German blockades to supply Britain in the First World War were so pivotal that they were recognised as a second 'navy' – the Merchant Navy. This fleet again saw service in the Second World War, con...

Shipwrecks have captured our imagination for centuries. Here acclaimed historian Sam Willis traces the astonishing tales of ships that have met with disastrous ends, along with the ensuing acts of courage, moments of sacrifice and episodes of villainy that inevitably occurred in the extreme conditions. Many were freak accidents, and their circumstances so extraordinary that they inspired literature: the ramming of the Essex by a sperm whale was immortalized in Herman Melville's

From the day she sank in April 1912 to the present, one of the enduring mysteries of the Titanic disaster was the singlefunneled, fourmasted mystery ship, sighted as the White Star liner, outward bound on her maiden voyage, began to slip beneath the calm waters of the icebergstrewn North Atlantic.The Leyland liner SS Californian has been blamed, but was she the real mystery ship the one that ignored the distress rockets sent up by Titanics officers? The s...