Archive for Items Categorized 'Maritime', only excerpts shown, click title for full entry.

Turtle: David Bushnell’s Revolutionary Vessel

by Roy R. Manstan, Frederic J. Frese

This exceptionally well-written book examines what barely amounted to a sideshow during the American Revolution—the first-ever attempt at submarine warfare during the age of sail.

Benetti

by Decio Giulio Riccardo Carugati

If the closest you’ll get to a Benetti megayacht is a book, make it this one—it is as opulent and complex as the ships it celebrates.

The Steamboat Era: A History of Fulton’s Folly on American Rivers, 1807–1860

by S.L. Kotar and J.E. Gessler

“Riverboat’s ‘a commin’!” Everything you wanted to know about pre-1860 steamboats operating on western rivers, and more! Owning a riverboat was a rough and tumble life.

Isambard Kingdom Brunel

by Robin Jones 

His career reads like fiction. A 2002 BBC poll voted him no. 2 of the “100 Greatest Britons”—143 years after his death! No “15 minutes of fame” for this fellow, but have you heard of him?

The Last Atlantic Liners: Getting There is Half the Fun

by William H. Miller, Jr.

In an ever-faster moving world, ocean liners could not keep up with jet airliners, no matter their far greater creature comforts and the sheer romance of sailing the high seas. This book shows some of the great boats but explains nothing.

The New Cunard Queens

by Nils Schwerdtner 

If you encounter an ocean liner these days whose name has the prefix Queen you know you’re looking at a Cunarder. This book offers a look at the famous company’s history and its three current flagships.

Ocean Liner Posters

by Cadringher & Massey

Ocean-crossing passenger ships did not make the world a global village but they were, especially when steam replaced (or augmented) sail which allowed them to overcome the capriciousness of wind and current, the first and for quite a long time only means of personal transport to different parts of the planet on a more or less repeatable and predictable basis.

Building Chris-Craft: Inside the Factories

by Mollica & Smith

The quality and appeal of the boats made by “America’s oldest manufacturer of powerboats” was such that a large number of buyers subscribed to the advertising slogan “Without a Chris-Craft, life at a shore resort or summer home cannot be called living.”

The Big Spenders

The Epic Story of the Rich Rich, the Grandees of America and the Magnificoes, and How They Spent Their Fortunes

by Lucius Beebe

Automobile folks couldn’t possibly be ignorant of the Pebble Beach Concours d’Elegance, first held in 1950. In its early days, one name was inseparable from the event: bon vivant and concours judge since 1954 Lucius Morris Beebe.

Ships and Shipbuilders: Pioneers of Design and Construction

by Fred M Walker

To the uninitiated, “Rina” may sound like the name of the girl next door but RINA, or rather the RINA, is really the venerable Royal Institution of Naval Architects which celebrated its 150th anniversary in 2010, which occasioned this book.

British Warships in the Age of Sail 1603–1714: Design, Construction, Careers and Fates

by Rif Winfield

If all you know about sailing ships comes from the occasional pirate movie, the level of magnification this book and its two companion volumes bring to the task is probably overkill. Even for the fairly specialized reader these books are hardly casual reading.

A Technical & Operational
 History of the Liberty Engine: Tanks, Ships and Aircraft 1917–1960

by Robert J. Neal

One of history’s most famous engines, and very possibly the one with the longest active military service life, the Liberty represents an ambitious and visionary solution to what could have become an intractable problem: too much creativity resulting in too muchf incompatibility.

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