Maritime History & Piracy

From New York Times bestselling author Hampton Sides, an epic account of the most momentous voyage of the Age of Exploration, which culminated in Captain James Cook’s death in Hawaii, and left a complex and controversial legacy still debated to this day....

On January 28, 1742, a ramshackle vessel of patched-together wood and cloth washed up on the coast of Brazil. Inside were thirty emaciated men, barely alive, and they had an extraordinary tale to tell....

The ordeal of the whaleship Essex was an event as mythic in the nineteenth century as the sinking of the Titanic was in the twentieth....

The mutiny on HMS Bounty, in the South Pacific on 28 April 1789, is one of history's truly great stories - a tale of human drama, intrigue and adventure of the highest order - and in the hands of Peter FitzSimons it comes to life as never before. Commissioned by the Royal Navy to collect breadfruit plants from Tahiti and take them to the West Indies, the Bounty's crew found themselves in a tropical paradise. Five months later, they did not want to leave.

Driven by a passion for travel and history and a love of ships and the sea, former Monty Python stalwart and beloved television globe-trotter Michael Palin explores the world of HMS Erebus, last seen on an ill-fated voyage to chart the Northwest Passage....

In this grand and thrilling narrative, the acclaimed biographer of Magellan, Columbus, and Marco Polo brings alive the singular life and adventures of Sir Francis Drake, the pirate/explorer/admiral whose mastery of the seas during the reign of Queen Elizabeth I changed....

Ghosh unravels the impact of the opium trade on global history and in his own family—the climax of a years long project....

Pirates have long lived in the realm of romance and fantasy, symbolizing risk, lawlessness, and radical visions of freedom. But at the root of this mythology is a rich history of pirate societies....

The story of the 16th-century’s epic contest for the spice trade, which propelled European maritime exploration and conquest across Asia and the Pacific.

On the night of 14/15 April 1912, a supposedly unsinkable ship, the largest and most luxurious vessel in the world at the time, collided with an iceberg and sank on her maiden voyage. Of the 2,208 people on board, only 712 were saved. The rest either drowned or froze to death.

The year is 1680, in the heart of the Golden Age of Piracy, and more than 300 daring, hardened pirates—a potent mix of low-life scallywags and a rare breed of gentlemen buccaneers—gather on a remote Caribbean island....

This is the little-known story of how a newly independent nation was challenged by four Muslim powers and what happened when America's third president decided to stand up....

What was daily life in Nelson's navy really like, for everyone from the captain down to the rawest recruit? What did they eat? What songs did they sing? What was the schedule of watches? How were the officers and crew paid, and what was the division of prize-money? Find out....

The true, harrowing story of the ill-fated 1913 Canadian Arctic Expedition and the two men who came to define it....

More than two centuries after Master’s Mate Fletcher Christian led a mutiny against Lieutenant William Bligh on a small, armed transport vessel called Bounty, the true story of this enthralling adventure has become obscured by the legend....

From the New York Times best-selling author of The Ghost Map and Extra Life, the story of a pirate who changed the world....

On July 30, 1945, the USS Indianapolis is sailing alone in the Philippine Sea when she is sunk by two Japanese torpedoes. For the next five nights, almost 300 miles from the nearest land, nearly 900 men battle injuries, sharks, dehydration, insanity, and eventually each other....

There were few experienced swimmers among over 1,300 Lower East Side residents who boarded the General Slocum on June 15, 1904. It shouldn't have mattered....

In the grand tradition of David McCullough and Ron Chernow, the sweeping story of the 19th-century American dynasties who battled for dominance of the tea and opium trades....

Two Years Before the Mast is a book by the American author Richard Henry Dana, Jr., written after a two-year sea voyage starting in 1834 and published in 1840...

On December 4th, 1872, a 100-foot brigantine was discovered drifting through the North Atlantic without a soul on board. Not a sign of struggle, not a shred of damage, no ransacked cargo-and not a trace of the captain, his wife and daughter, or the crew....

Steamboats and Sailors of the Great Lakes is the most thorough and factual study of the Great Lakes shipping industry written this century....

It is impossible to understand our world today without understanding the last 100 years of Middle Eastern history. The history of the region in the 20th century is so varied and complex that it defies easy explanations....

The dramatic and deliciously swashbuckling story of Sarah Kidd, the wife of the famous pirate Captain Kidd, charting her transformation from New York socialite to international outlaw during the Golden Age of Piracy....

So Others May Live: Coast Guard Rescue Swimmers: Saving Lives, Defying Death is the award-winning untold story of the US Coast Guard's quiet but resolute rescue swimmers....