The Way of the Ship: America's Maritime History Reenvisoned, 1600-2000 - Hardcover

Roland, Alex

Hardcover

ISBN 10: 0470136006 ISBN 13: 9780470136003

Publisher: Trade Paper Press, 2007

Synopsis

The history of shipping in America, as traditionally recounted, is based primarily on the fortunes of the American merchant marine. This book offers a global perspective and considers oceanic shipping and domestic shipping along America's coasts and inland waterways, with explanations of the forces that influenced the way of the ship. The result is an eye-opening look at American maritime history and the ways it helped shaped the nation’s history. It features beautiful color images of paintings by today’s premier marine artist, John Stobart.

About this title

From the Inside Flap:

The history of shipping in America from 1600 to 2000, as traditionally recounted,is based primarily on the fortunes of the American merchant marine. The Way of the Ship is different. While it elucidates the significant impact of the merchant marine, this book views American maritime commerce from a global perspective and incorporates the crucial contributions of shipping on coastal and inland waters.

The Way of the Ship tells the important story of the commercial transport of passengers and goods from port to port in American history and the ways in which it fueled the material and economic expansion of the country. Throughout, it explains the factors that influenced—and continue to influence—the shipping industry, from economics, government policy, and labor to the military and technology. It includes intriguing details about the ships and ports that played pivotal roles and the entrepreneurs who took the helm along the way.

Readers will be struck by two paradoxes: the contrast between the volume of U.S. trade and the size of its merchant marine, and the contrast between the importance of shipping in American history and life and its relative invisibility to historians and citizens.

Complete with beautiful color images of paintings by today's premier marine artist, John Stobart, this thought-provoking reference sheds new light on the country's fascinating maritime past and examines the diverse factors that will influence the way of the ship in the twenty-first century.

From the Back Cover:

AN ENLIGHTENING,EXPANDED VIEW OFAMERICAN MARITIME HISTORY

From Native Americans with birch bark canoes and inventive colonists who took fishing shallops and laid decks over them for coastal trading to the rise of the automated mass carrier and ever-bigger passenger cruise ships, this book tells the story of four hundred years of America's maritime history. It is filled with powerful and evocative images of ships such as the Mayflower, Savannah, Flying Cloud, Alabama, Sea-Land McLean, and Exxon Valdez; ports, including Boston, New Orleans, Philadelphia, New York, Chicago, San Francisco, Salem, Buffalo, and Seattle; and people such as Joseph Peabody, Robert Fulton, Mark Twain, Donald McKay, Cornelius Vanderbilt, J. P. Morgan, and Malcom McLean.

The Way of the Ship offers a global perspective and considers both oceanic shipping and domestic shipping along America's coasts and inland waterways, with explanations of the forces that influenced the way of the ship. The result is an eye-opening, authoritative look at American maritime history and the ways it helped shape the nation's history.

Includes 16 color pages of marine paintings by John Stobart.

This is part of a two-book project created by the American Maritime History Project, Inc., an independent enterprise with an office at the United States Merchant Marine Academy at Kings Point, New York.

About this edition

• Publisher: Trade Paper Press
• Publication date: 2007
• ISBN 10: 0470136006
• ISBN 13: 9780470136003
• Binding: Hardcover
• Edition number: 1
• Number of pages: 544