Showing titles in Maritime History & Piracy

When the Titanic sank, so did the Edwardian age that created it. In this brilliantly original history, Gareth Russell recasts a tragedy we think we know to explore an era of seismic change. With new research and previously unseen first-hand accounts, Gareth Russell peers through the most famous...

In June 1631, pirates from Algiers and armed troops of the Turkish Ottoman Empire, led by the notorious pirate captain Morat Rais, stormed ashore at the little harbor village of Baltimore in West Cork. They captured almost all the villagers and bore them away to a life of slavery in North Africa. The prisoners were destined for a variety of fates—some would live out their days chained to the oars as galley slaves, while others would spend long years in the scented seclusion of the harem or within the walls of the Sultan's palace. 

The Dive is a thrilling narrative nonfiction in the tradition of The Perfect Storm and Apollo 13. They were out of their depth, out of breath, and out of time. It was 1973. Two men were trapped in a crippled submarine 1,700 feet below sea. They only had enough air to survive for two days. On the...

Lighthouses are striking totems of our relationship to the sea. For many, they encapsulate a romantic vision of solitary homes amongst the waves, but their original purpose is much more utilitarian than that. Still today we depend upon their guiding lights for the safe passage of ships. Nowhere is this truer than in the rock lighthouses of Great Britain and Ireland, a ring of 19 towers built between 1811-1905, so called because they were constructed on desolate rock formations in the middle of the sea, and made of granite to withstand the power of its waves.

Set sail on a thrilling voyage into the mysterious and treacherous world of the notorious pirate, Blackbeard, in this riveting biography that unveils the man behind the legend. In Blackbeard, the high seas come alive as we chart the tumultuous life of Edward Teach, the infamous pirate who struck fear into the hearts of sailors and coastal communities alike.

Andrew Lambert, author of The Challenge - winner of the prestigious Anderson Medal - turns his attention to Athens, Carthage, Venice, the Dutch Republic, and Britain, examining how their identities as "seapowers" informed their actions and enabled them to achieve success disproportionate to their size. Lambert demonstrates how creating maritime identities made these states more dynamic, open, and inclusive than their lumbering continental rivals. Only when they forgot this aspect of their identity did these nations begin to decline.

“Thoroughly engrossing . . . a spirited, suspenseful, economically told tale whose significance is manifest and whose pace never flags.” —The Wall Street Journal From The New York Times–bestselling author of The Ghost Map and Extra Life, the story of a pirate who changed the world Henry...

Henry Avery of Devon pillaged a fortune from a Mughal ship off the coast of India and then vanished into thin air—and into legend. More ballads, plays, biographies and books were written about Avery’s adventures than any other pirate. His contemporaries crowned him "the pirate king" for pulling off the richest heist in pirate history and escaping with his head intact (unlike Blackbeard and his infamous Flying Gang). Avery was now the most wanted criminal on earth. To the authorities, Avery was the enemy of all mankind. To the people he was a hero.

Marking the centenary of the Titanic disaster, Titanic Lives is an utterly compelling exploration of the lives on board the most famous ship in history. On the night of 14 April 1912, midway through her maiden voyage, the seemingly unsinkable Titanic hit an iceberg, sustaining a 300-feet gash as...

AN ECONOMIST BEST BOOK OF 2024 'Masterful and entrancing - this is big history at its best.' Professor Alice Roberts, author of Ancestors 'A real-life Indiana Jones takes readers on a dive through these underwater museums, revealing the sunken secrets of the past' The Times From a Bronze Age...

The legendary explorer of the Titanic shares inside stories of danger, suspense, and discovery - plus previously untold stories about his own dyslexia and how it has shaped his life.

A bulwark against invasion, a conduit for exchange and a challenge to be conquered, the English Channel has always been many things to many people. Today it's the busiest shipping lane in the world and hosts more than 30 million passenger crossings every year but this sliver of choppy brine, just 21 miles wide at its narrowest point, represents much more than a conductor of goods and people.  

Brought to you by Penguin. The remarkable true story of two amateur divers who discover a World War Two German U-Boat sunk 60 miles off the eastern coast of America In 1991, 60 miles off the coast of New Jersey, at the incredible depth of 230 feet underwater, two amateur divers, John Chatterton...

PIRATA - the action-packed novel of pirates in the Roman Empire in AD 25. Across the seas of the Adriaticum, pirates face mortal danger from wild storms, fight to hold their own against merciless rival pirates, and wrangle amongst themselves over hard-won treasure. While the Roman navy hunts...

Random House presents the audiobook edition of Endeavour, written by Peter Moore, read by Ric Jerrom. An inventive biography of one of the most famous ships of all time – from the oak tree it was made from to its last voyage in the American War of Independence The Enlightenment was an age of...

A BBC RADIO 4 BOOK OF THE WEEK One woman. One ship. One astonishing true story. ‘Hear the wind whistle through the ropes, taste the salt spray and feel the roll of the ship…. A true-life epic.’ Peter Fretwell, author of Antarctic Atlas Summer 1856. Nineteen-year-old Mary Ann Patten and her...

A century before Britain became involved in this terrible business, whole villages and towns in European countries were being depopulated by slavers, who transported the men, women, and children to Africa, where they were sold. This is the forgotten slave trade, one which saw over a million Christians forced into captivity in the Muslim world. Starting in the ancient world, Simon Webb traces the history of slavery in Europe, showing that the numbers involved were vast and that the victims were often treated far more cruelly than black slaves in America and the Caribbean.

In a book that will recalibrate our view of this defining feature of our planet, physicist Helen Czerski dives deep to illuminate the murky depths of the ocean engine, examining the messengers, passengers and voyagers that live in it, travel over it, and survive because of it. From the ancient Polynesians who navigated the Pacific by reading the waves to permanent residents of the deep such as the Greenland shark that can live for hundreds of years, she explains the vast currents, invisible ocean walls and underwater waterfalls that all have their place in the ocean's complex system.

Spices drove the early modern world economy, and for Europeans they represented riches on an unprecedented scale. Cloves and nutmeg could reach Europe only via a complex web of trade routes, and for decades Spanish and Portuguese explorers competed to find their elusive source. But when the Portuguese finally reached the spice islands of the Moluccas in 1511, they set in motion a fierce competition for control.

Out of print for many years, this is a brand new edition of the definitive companion to the acclaimed Aubrey-Maturin series of novels, written by the author himself. What was daily life in Nelson's navy really like, for everyone from the captain down to the rawest recruit? What did they eat?...