Ships of the World: An Historical Encyclopedia - Hardcover

Paine, Lincoln P.

Hardcover

ISBN 10: 0395715563 ISBN 13: 9780395715567

Publisher: Houghton Mifflin Harcourt, 1997

From Noah's Ark to the Exxon Valdez, this reference describes the important roles that ships have played in human history and explores in great detail more than one thousand vessels that have helped shape the modern world.

Review:

You don't have to be a maritime history buff--or even a sailor--to find Lincoln Paine's Ships of the World fascinating. Certainly no scholar or student of the history of ships will want to be without it: it consists of more than 1,000 alphabetical entries describing individual ships' histories and fates. Yet because of the author's flair for language and the skill with which he has made his selections, the book is a browser's delight--almost a short-story collection. Look up an entry on any celebrated vessel--the Titanic, the Monitor, the Lusitania--and you'll find an admirably concise history of the boat and the events that made it famous. But browsing turns up countless unexpected pleasures, from the story of the Politician (a freighter that ran aground in the Outer Hebrides, where its cargo of Scotch was efficiently plundered by locals) to that of Jacques Cousteau's Calypso. The hundreds of well-chosen black-and-white illustrations help bring the tales alive.

About the Author:

Lincoln P. Paine, formerly editor of Sea History magazine and director of the Schooners Foundation, is a member of the national advisory board of the American Sail Training Association. He lives by the sea with his wife, Allison, and two daughters, who bare the names of famous ships. He currently lives in Portland, Maine.