Library Results | Royal Museums Greenwich

Eastern fortress : a military history of Hong Kong, 1840-1970 /Kwong Chi Man and Tsoi Yiu Lun. "Celebrated as a trading port, Hong Kong was also Britain's 'eastern fortress'. Likened by many to Gibraltar and Malta, the colony was a vital but vulnerable link in imperial strategy, exposed to a succession of enemies in a turbulent age and a troubled region. This book examines Hong Kong's developing role in the Victorian imperial defence system, the emerging challenges from Russia, France, the United States, Germany, Japan and other powers, and preparations in the years leading up to the Second World War. A detailed chapter offers new interpretations of the Battle of Hong Kong of 1941, when the colony succumbed to the Japanese invasion. The remaining chapters discuss Hong Kong's changing strategic role during the Cold War and the winding down of the military presence. The book not only focuses on policies and events, but also explores the social life of the garrison in Hong Kong, the struggles between military and civil authorities, and relations between the armed forces and civilians in Hong Kong. Drawing on original research in archives around the world, including English, Japanese, and Chinese sources, this is the first full-length study of the defence of Hong Kong from the beginning of the colonial period to the end of British military interests East of Suez in 1970. Illustrated with images and detailed maps, Eastern Fortress will be of interest to both students of history and general readers."--Provided by the publisher. 2014. • BOOK • 1 copy available. 355.48(512.317)

British blockade runners in the American Civil War / Joseph McKenna. "Focusing on British involvement in the war, this history names the overseas bankers and manufacturers who, in need of cotton and other exports, financed and equipped the ships that ran the blockade. The author attempts to disentangle the names of the captains--many were Royal Navy officers on temporary leave--and tells their stories in their own words"-- [2019] • BOOK • 1 copy available. 973.7/5

Shanghai : China's gateway to modernity /Marie-Claire Bergere ; translated by Janet Lloyd. "Shanghai today is a thriving, bustling metropolis. But does its avid pursuit of the modern trappings of success truly indicate that it will once again become the shining example of China's commercial and cosmopolitan culture? While history continues to unfold, the author, an eminent scholar on China takes readers back to when Shanghai first opened to the world in 1842 to narrate the city's tumultuous and unique course to the present. This work is the first comprehensive history of Shanghai in any Western language. Divided into four parts, it details Shanghai's beginnings as a treaty port in the mid-nineteenth century; its capitalist boom following the 1911 Revolution; the fifteen years of economic and social decline initiated by the Japanese invasion in 1937, and attempts at resistance; and the city's disgraced years under Communism. Weaving together a range of archival documents and existing histories to create a global picture of Shanghai's past and present, the author shows that Shanghai's success was not fated, as some contend, by an evolutionary pattern set into motion long before the arrival of westerners. Rather, her account identifies the relationship between the Chinese and foreigners in Shanghai, their interaction, cooperation, and rivalry, as the driving force behind the creation of an original culture, a specific modernity, founded upon western contributions but adapted to the national Chinese culture. Eclipsed for three decades by socialism, the wheels of the Shanghai spirit began to turn in the 1990s, when the reform movement took off anew. The city is again being referred to as a model for China's current modernization drive. Although it makes no claims to what will happen next, this work stands as a compelling and definitive profile of a city whose urban history continues to be redefined, retold, and resold."--Provided by the publisher. 2009. • BOOK • 1 copy available. 951/.132

The diary of Abraham Ulrikab : text and context /translated by Hartmut Lutz and students from the University of Greifswald, Germany. "In August 1880, businessman Adrian Jakobsen convinced eight Inuit men, women, and children from Hebron and Nakvak, Labrador, to accompany him to Europe to be "exhibited" in zoos and Volkerschauen (ethnographic shows). Abraham, Maria, Noggasak, Paingo, Sara, Terrianiak, Tobias, and Ulrike agreed, partly for the money and partly out of curiosity to see the wonders of Europe, which they had heard about from the Moravian missionaries. By January 1881, all eight had died in Europe of smallpox." 2005. • BOOK • 1 copy available. 305.897/120718209034

Patent for improvement on a log for ascertaining a ship's distance Gould, Chester 1800 • RARE-BOOK • 1 copy available. 094:608.3:531.7

Privateers of the Americas : Spanish American privateering from the United States in the early republic /David Head. "Privateers of the Americas examines raids on Spanish shipping conducted from the United States during the early 1800s. These activities were sanctioned by, and conducted on behalf of, republics in Spanish America aspiring to independence from Spain. Among the available histories of privateering, there is no comparable work. Because privateering further complicated international dealings during the already tumultuous Age of Revolution, the book also offers a new perspective on the diplomatic and Atlantic history of the early American republic. Seafarers living in the United States secured commissions from Spanish American nations, attacked Spanish vessels, and returned to sell their captured cargoes (which sometimes included slaves) from bases in Baltimore, New Orleans, and Galveston and on Amelia Island. Privateers sold millions of dollars of goods to untold numbers of ordinary Americans. Their collective enterprise involved more than a hundred vessels and thousands of people - not only ships' crews but investors, merchants, suppliers, and others. They angered foreign diplomats, worried American officials, and muddied U.S. foreign relations. David Head looks at how Spanish American privateering worked and who engaged in it; how the U.S. government responded; how privateers and their supporters evaded or exploited laws and international relations; what motivated men to choose this line of work; and ultimately, what it meant to them to sail for the new republics of Spanish America. His findings broaden our understanding of the experience of being an American in a wider world."--Provided by the publisher. 2015. • BOOK • 1 copy available. 341.362.1(73)

Native American whalemen and the world : indigenous encounters and the contingency of race /Nancy Shoemaker. "In the nineteenth century, nearly all Native American men living along the southern New England coast made their living traveling the world's oceans on whaleships. Many were career whalemen, spending twenty years or more at sea. Their labor invigorated economically depressed reservations with vital income and led to complex and surprising connections with other Indigenous peoples, from the islands of the Pacific to the Arctic Ocean. At home, aboard ship, or around the world, Native American seafarers found themselves in a variety of situations, each with distinct racial expectations about who was "Indian" and how "Indians" behaved. Treated by their white neighbors as degraded dependents incapable of taking care of themselves, Native New Englanders nevertheless rose to positions of command at sea. They thereby complicated myths of exploration and expansion that depicted cultural encounters as the meeting of two peoples, whites and Indians. Highlighting the shifting racial ideologies that shaped the lives of these whalemen, Nancy Shoemaker shows how the category of "Indian" was as fluid as the whalemen were mobile."--Provided by the publisher. 2015 • BOOK • 1 copy available. 917(=97)

Before the Ironclad : warship design and development 1815-1860 /D K Brown, RCNC. "In the massive revolution that affected warship design between Waterloo and the Warrior, the Royal Navy was traditionally depicted as fiercely resisting every change until it was almost too late, but these old assumptions were first challenged in this authoritative history of the transition from sail to steam. Originally published in 1990, it began a process of revaluation which has produced a more positive assessment of the British contribution to the naval developments of the period. This classic work is here reprinted in an entirely new edition, with more extensive illustration. Beginning with the structural innovations of Robert Seppings, the book traces the gradual introduction of more scientific methods and the advent of steam and the paddle fighting ship, iron hulls and screw propulsion. It analyses the performance of the fleet in the war with Russia (1853-1856), and concludes with the design of the Warrior, the first iron-hulled, seagoing capital ship in the world. The author presents a picture of an organisation that was well aware of new technology, carefully evaluating its practical advantage, and occasionally (as with its enthusiastic espousal of iron hulls) moving too quickly for the good of the service. Written by an eminent naval architect, Before the Ironclad is both a balanced account of general developments, and an in-depth study of the ships themselves."--Provided by the publisher. 2015. • FOLIO • 1 copy available. 623.82(42)"18"

Envoys of abolition : British naval officers and the campaign against the slave trade in West Africa /Mary Wills. ''After Britain's Abolition of the Slave Trade Act of 1807, a squadron of Royal Navy vessels was sent to the West Coast of Africa tasked with suppressing the thriving transatlantic slave trade. Drawing on previously unpublished papers found in private collections and various archives in the UK and abroad, this book examines the personal and cultural experiences of the naval officers at the frontline of Britain's anti-slavery campaign in West Africa. It explores their unique roles in this 60-year operation: at sea, boarding slave ships bound for the Americas and 'liberating' captive Africans; on shore, as Britain resolved to 'improve' West African societies; and in the metropolitan debates around slavery and abolitionism in Britain. Their personal narratives are revealing of everyday concerns of health, rewards and strategy, to more profound questions of national honour, cultural encounters, responsibility for the lives of others in the most distressing of circumstances, and the true meaning of 'freedom' for formerly enslaved African peoples. British anti-slavery efforts and imperial agendas were tightly bound in the nineteenth century, inseparable from ideas of national identity. This is a book about individuals tasked with extraordinary service, military men who also worked as guardians, negotiators, and envoys of abolition.''--Povided by the publisher. 2019. • BOOK • 1 copy available. 381.44094109034

The reinvention of Atlantic slavery : technology, labor, race, and capitalism in the Greater Caribbean /Daniel B. Rood. "The Reinvention of Atlantic Slavery shows how, at a moment of crisis after the Age of Revolutions, ambitious planters in the Upper US South, Cuba, and Brazil forged a new set of relationships with one another to sidestep the financial dominance of Great Britain and the northeastern United States. They hired a transnational group of chemists, engineers, and other 'plantation experts' to assist them in adapting the technologies of the Industrial Revolution to suit tropical needs and maintain profitability. These experts depended on the know-how of slaves alongside whom they worked. Bondspeople with industrial craft skills played key roles in the development of new production technologies like sugar mills. While the very existence of skilled enslaved workers contradicted the racial ideologies underpinning slavery and allowed black people to wield new kinds of authority within the plantation world, their contributions reinforced the economic dynamism of the slave economies of Cuba, Brazil, and the Upper South. When separate wars broke out in all three locations in the 1860s, the transnational bloc of masters and experts took up arms to perpetuate the Greater Caribbean they had built throughout the 1840s and 1850s. Slaves played key wartime roles on the opposing side, helping put an end to chattel slavery. However, the worldwide racial division of labor that emerged from the reinvented plantation complex has proved more durable."--Provided by the publisher. 2017. • BOOK • 1 copy available. 306.3/6209729

The Amistad rebellion : an Atlantic odyssey of slavery and freedom /Marcus Rediker. "The dramatic story of a courageous rebellion against slavery On 28 June 1839, the Spanish slave schooner La Amistad set sail from Havana to make a routine delivery of human cargo. After four days at sea, on a moonless night, the captive Africans that comprised that cargo escaped from the hold, killed the captain, and seized control of the ship. They attempted to sail to a safe port, but were captured by the US navy and thrown into a Connecticut jail. Their legal battle for freedom eventually made its way to the Supreme Court, where former president John Quincy Adams took up their cause. In a landmark ruling, they were freed and eventually returned to Africa. The rebellion became one of the best-known events in the history of American slavery, celebrated as a triumph of the US legal system in books and films, most famously Steven Spielberg?s Amistad. These narratives reflect the elite perspective of the judges, politicians, and abolitionists involved. In this powerful and highly original account, Marcus Rediker reclaims the rebellion for its instigators: the African rebels who risked death to stake a claim for freedom. Using newly discovered evidence, Rediker reaches back to Africa to find the rebels? roots, narrates their cataclysmic transatlantic journey, and unfolds a prison story of great drama and emotive power. Featuring vividly drawn portraits of the Africans, their captors, and their abolitionist allies, The Amistad Rebellion shows how the rebels captured the popular imagination and helped to inspire and build a movement that was part of a grand global struggle for emancipation. The actions of that distant July night and inthe days and months that followed were pivotal events in American and Atlantic history, but not for the reasons we have always thought. The successful Amistad rebellion changed the very nature of the struggle against slavery. As a handful of Africans steered a course to freedom, they opened a way for millions to follow. This stunning book honours their achievement."--Provided by the publisher. 2013. • BOOK • 1 copy available. 355.133"1839"

Turret versus broadside : an anatomy of British naval prestige, revolution and disaster, 1860-1870 /Howard J. Fuller. "On the 150th anniversary of the capsizing of Britain's low-freeboard yet fully-masted ironclad, HMS Captain, this widely-researched, intensive analysis of the great 'Turret vs. Broadside' debate sheds new light on how the most well-funded and professional navy in the world at the height of its power could nevertheless build an 'inherently unstable' capital ship. Utilising an impressive array of government reports, contemporary periodicals, and unpublished personal papers this definitive study crucially provides for the first time both a long-term and international context. The 1860s was a pivotal decade in the evolution of British national identity as well as warship design. Nor were these two elements mutually exclusive. 1860 began gloriously with the launch of Britain's first ocean-going ironclad, HMS Warrior, but 1870 ended badly with the Captain. Along the way, British public and political faith in the supremacy of the Royal Navy was not reaffirmed as some histories suggest, but wavered. The growing emphasis upon new technologies including ever heavier guns and thicker armour plating for men-of-war was not 'decisive' but divisive, as pressure mounted to somehow combine the range of Warrior with the unique protection and hitting power of American monitor-ironclads of the Civil War. As the geopolitical debate over rival ironclad proposals intensified, aggressively-minded Prime Minister Lord Palmerston gradually adopted a non-interventionist foreign policy which surprised his contemporaries. Turret versus Broadside traces the previously unexplored connection between an increasingly schizophrenic Admiralty for and against the Captain, for example, and sabre-rattling mid-Victorians sinking into an era of 'Splendid Isolation'."--Provided by the publisher. 2020. • BOOK • 1 copy available. 359.00941

The floating prison : the remarkable account of nine years captivity on the British prison hulks during the Napoleonic wars, 1806 to 1814 A translation of Garneray's account of his life as a prisoner of war on board the prison hulks, originally published in French in 1851 as Mes Pontons. Louis Garneray (1783-1857), a marine artist, went to sea at the age of 13, serving on board privateers in the Indian Ocean until captured by the British in 1806. This work records Garneray's confinement on the Prothee, Crown and Vengeance, hulks stationed in Portsmouth harbour, and the Pegase, a hospital ship. In the foreword describing Garneray's life, the translator, Richard Rose, highlights inconsistencies in Garneray's account and casts some doubt on his reliability as a historian and narrator while accepting the accuracy of his depiction of daily life, routines and physical conditions on board the hulks. Garneray went on to become one of the foremost marine painters of his day, having developed his talent during his captivity. The title includes illustrations and plates of paintings by Garneray. Appendices provide lists of the hulks stationed at Portsmouth and French officers on board and on parole, details of Garneray's sources, background on the rafales, women on board, the mortality of prisoners of war, and brief biographies of people connected to the hulks and linked to Garneray's narrative. The work is supported by detailed notes and a bibliography. 2003 • BOOK • 2 copies available. 629.124.79:343.81

The French fleet : ships, strategy and operations, 1870-1918 /Ruggero Stanglini and Michele Cosentino. "At the end of the 1870-1 Franco-Prussian war, the French Navy began to reconstruct its fleet, but the process was slow and erratic principally because priority was initially given to the army. Nevertheless, French naval yards and private shipyards were tasked with building a fleet of ironclads, cruisers and minor vessels which led France to become the second European naval power, at least quantitatively. The rise of the 'Jeune áEcole' (Young School) strategic naval concept in the early 1880s then changed shipbuilding priorities, and emphasis was given to coastal torpedo boats and cruisers. As a consequence, the French Navy implemented the dreadnought concept later than Great Britain and Germany. The 1904 Entente Cordiale contributed to yet further radical changes to foreign, naval and shipbuilding policies, so that at the outbreak of World War One the French fleet comprised a limited number of dreadnoughts, many obsolete armoured cruisers, an impressive array of torpedo boats and a fleet of submarines whose efficiency was questionable. The book provides a complete overview of the French Navy during this long era, and the complex French foreign and naval policy, shipyards and industrial organisation, technology and operations are all described in the first part of the volume, while the second and larger part is focused on the different categories of warships, including their qualitative and quantitative evolution during the period of 1871?1918 and their employment during the Great War. A chapter is also dedicated to naval aviation. Superbly illustrated with rare and carefully selected photographs, this major new volume paints a clear and detailed overview of the French navy during this era and is destined to become a classic reference work for this period."--Provided by the publisher. 2022. • FOLIO • 1 copy available. 359.00944

The coffin ship : life and death at sea during the Great Irish Famine /Cian T. McMahon. "The standard story of the exodus during Ireland's Great Famine is one of tired clichâes, half-truths, and dry statistics. In The Coffin Ship, a groundbreaking work of transnational history, Cian T. McMahon offers a vibrant, fresh perspective on an oft-ignored but vital component of the migration experience: the journey itself. Between 1845 and 1855, over two million people fled Ireland to escape the Great Famine and begin new lives abroad. The so-called 'coffin ships' they embarked on have since become infamous icons of nineteenth-century migration. The crews were brutal, the captains were heartless, and the weather was ferocious. Yet the personal experiences of the emigrants aboard these vessels offer us a much more complex understanding of this pivotal moment in modern history. Based on archival research on three continents and written in clear, crisp prose, The Coffin Ship analyzes the emigrants' own letters and diaries to unpack the dynamic social networks that the Irish built while voyaging overseas. At every stage of the journey - including the treacherous weeks at sea - these migrants created new threads in the worldwide web of the Irish diaspora. Colored by the long-lost voices of the emigrants themselves, this is an original portrait of a process that left a lasting mark on Irish life at home and abroad. An indispensable read, The Coffin Ship makes an ambitious argument for placing the sailing ship alongside the tenement and the factory floor as a central, dynamic element of migration history."-- [2021] • BOOK • 1 copy available. 304.809415/09034

Shipwrecked : a true Civil War story of mutinies, jailbreaks, blockade-running, and the slave trade /Jonathan W. White. "Historian Jonathan W. White tells the riveting story of Appleton Oaksmith, a swashbuckling sea captain whose life intersected with some of the most important moments, movements, and individuals of the mid-19th century, from the California Gold Rush, filibustering schemes in Nicaragua, Cuban liberation, and the Civil War and Reconstruction. Most importantly, the book depicts the extraordinary lengths the Lincoln Administration went to destroy the illegal trans-Atlantic slave trade. Using Oaksmith?s case as a lens, White takes readers into the murky underworld of New York City, where federal marshals plied the docks in lower Manhattan in search of evidence of slave trading. Once they suspected Oaksmith, federal authorities had him arrested and convicted, but in 1862 he escaped from jail and became a Confederate blockade-runner in Havana. The Lincoln Administration tried to have him kidnapped in violation of international law, but the attempt was foiled. Always claiming innocence, Oaksmith spent the next decade in exile until he received a presidential pardon from U.S. Grant, at which point he moved to North Carolina and became an anti-Klan politician. Through a remarkable, fast-paced story, this book will give readers a new perspective on slavery and shifting political alliances during the turbulent Civil War Era." 2023. • BOOK • 1 copy available. 973.6092

The journals of Captain James Cook on his voyages of discovery / James Cook, ed. by J.C. Beaglehole. 1955-1974. • OVERSIZE • 8 copies available. 910.4(100)"1768/1780":92COOK

Tables de Mars Le Francais de la Lande, Michel Jean Jerome 1800 • RARE-PAMPH • 1 copy available. 523.43

The battle of the Nile : a Pindaric ode Knight, Ellis Cornelia 1800 • RARE-BOOK • 1 copy available. 820-1

Drill for 40 mm single Mark 7 mounting Great Britain.-Admiralty 1957 • PAMPHLET • 1 copy available. 623.433:623.94

Pub Terentii comoediae sex ex recensione Heinsiana Terentius, Publius ca1700 • RARE-BOOK • 1 copy available. 094:871

A treatise on the commerce and police of the river Thames Colquhoun, Patrick, 1969 • BOOK • 1 copy available. 382(282.242.1)

The complete East-India pilot : or oriental navigator : volume 1 Laurie, Robert 1800 • ATLAS-OVER • 1 copy available. 094:912.44(261:264:267)"18"

The Nelson encyclopaedia / Colin White. White, Colin, 2002. • BOOK • 1 copy available. 92NELSON(031)

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