Library Results | Royal Museums Greenwich

Facing the text : extra-illustration, print culture, and society in Britain, 1769-1840 /Lucy Peltz. "Facing the Text is essential for understanding the nature, popularity, and meanings of extra-illustration in the long eighteenth century and its place in the history of print culture. Lucy Peltz explores the practice in relation to the popularization of antiquarianism, the commercialization of print culture, the reception of engraved portraiture, and the rise of the amateur, the collector, and the connoisseur."--Provided by the publisher. 2017 • FOLIO • 1 copy available. 76(42)

The battleship holiday : the naval treaties and capital ship design /Robert C Stern "Even as the First World War was ending the victorious great powers were already embarked on a potentially ruinous new naval race, competing to incorporate the wartime lessons and technology into ever-larger and costlier capital ships -- still seen as the ultimate arbiters of sea power. This competition was curtailed by the Washington naval treaty of 1922, which effectively banned the construction of such ships for years to come, and mandated the scrapping of those under construction. This 'holiday' was to have profound effects on design when battleship building was renewed in the 1930s, as later international agreements continued to restrict size and firepower. This book investigates the implications of these treaties on technical developments, contrasting the post-war generation of ships that were never completed -- or never even ordered -- with the new designs of the 1930s, revealing just how much progress had been made in areas like fire control and armour despite the hiatus. An analysis of how well these modern ships stood the test of war concludes this intriguing and original contribution to the literature -- a book that is certain to fascinate anyone interested in the final era of the big-gun at sea."--Provided by the publisher. 2017 • BOOK • 1 copy available. 623.821.2

Relics of the Franklin Expedition : Discovering Artifacts from the Doomed Arctic Voyage of 1845/Garth Walpole "Sir John Franklin's Arctic expedition departed England in 1845 with two Royal Navy bomb vessels, 129 men and three years worth of provisions. None were seen again until nearly a decade later, when their bleached bones, broken instruments, books, papers and personal effects began to be recovered on Canada's King William Island. These relics have since had a life of their own: photographed, analyzed, cataloged and displayed in glass cases in London. This book gives a definitive history of their preservation and exhibition from the Victorian era to the present, richly illustrated with period engravings and photographs, many never before published. Appendices provide the first comprehensive accounting of all expedition relics recovered prior to the 2014 discovery of Franklin's ship HMS Erebus."--Provided by publisher. 2017. • BOOK • 1 copy available. 069.51

Wooden warship construction : a history in ship models /Brian Lavery. "The National Maritime Museum in Greenwich houses the largest collection of scale ship models in the world, many of which are official, contemporary artifacts made by the craftsmen of the Royal Navy or by the shipbuilders themselves. They range from the mid-seventeenth-century to the present day and represent a three-dimensional archive of unique importance and authority. Treated as historical evidence, these models offer more detail than even the most detailed plans, and demonstrate exactly what the ships looked like in a way that the finest marine painter could not. This book takes a selection of the best models from the beginning of the eighteenth century to the end of wooden shipbuilding to describe and demonstrate the development of warship construction in all its complexity. For this purpose, it reproduces a large number of photos, all in full color, and includes many close-up and detail views. These are captioned in depth, but many are also annotated to focus attention on interesting or unusual features. Although pictorial in emphasis, the book weaves the illustrations into an authoritative text, producing an unusual and attractive form of technical history." --Provided by the publisher. 2017. • BOOK • 1 copy available. 629.12.011.21

Edinburgh's Leith Docks 1970-80 : The transition years /Malcolm Fife "Leith has been Edinburgh?s main port since the Middle Ages. It is one of the oldest harbours in the country, dating back to the twelfth century. Modern Leith docks took shape in the nineteenth century with the construction of stone quays and breakwaters. The late 1930s saw a further major expansion of the docks with the building of the Western Breakwater, greatly expanding the area of the port. After the end of the Second World War, however, there was a gradual decline in the number of cargo ships being handled at Leith. It was bypassed by the container revolution which commenced in the 1960s, with most shipping operators preferring to use Grangemouth Docks instead. Nevertheless, today, it is the largest enclosed deep-water port in Scotland. The port was transformed in 1969 when a large state-of-the-art sea lock was installed, transforming the tidal harbour into a deep-water docks. Its fortunes were further boosted with the discovery of oil in the southern North Sea. A motley collection of vessels operated out of Leith to supply and service the oil rigs. There were further ships involved in the construction of the vast undersea pipeline network. Other examples transported heavy equipment to the Orkney and Shetland Islands where the search for oil was just beginning. Cruise ships also began to call at Leith in the 1970s and this has now become one of its main activities. In this book, Malcolm Fife explores this fascinating decade of change for Leith Docks."--Provided by the publisher. 2017 • BOOK • 1 copy available. 627.3(414)

War Beneath the Waves : Uboat Flotilla in Flanders 1915-1918 /Tomas Termote "For four years the German U-boats of U-Flottille Flandern would become a serious threat to the omnipotence of the Royal Navy and its fleet. By the end of the war they had managed to sink a total of 2,554 Allied ships, totalling 2.5 million tons of shipping. The Royal Navy put everything it had at its disposal to defeat the U-boats. Mines, steel nets, patrol craft, Q-ships, aircraft, airships, convoys, espionage and specially equipped salvage units had to eliminate the activities of the U-boat. As a consequence, these countermeasures caused the loss of 80% of the U-boats which were stationed in the Flemish ports.Underwater archaeologist and naval historian Tomas Termote visited the wrecks of many U-boats and has unraveled many of their secrets. He also writes about life on board the U-boats, their importance in the war and the heavy losses on both sides. For the first time a detailed insight in this unique part of history is given with an account of the fate of every U-boat of the fleet.Illustrated with underwater colour photographs of the wrecks, drawings of the sites and artefacts which helped identify unidentified sites,including that of UB-88, which ended up after the war in US waters where she was paraded in every big port on the US East coast, and sailed right up north along the West coast where it ended its life after being sunk off San Diego."--Provided by the publisher. 2017. • BOOK • 1 copy available. 623.827.3

Nelson's lost jewel : the extraordinary story of the lost diamond chelengk /Martyn Downer. "Admiral Lord Nelson's diamond Chelengk is one of the most famous and iconic jewels in British history. Presented to Nelson by the Sultan Selim III of Turkey after the Battle of the Nile in 1798, the jewel had thirteen diamond rays to represent the French ships captured or destroyed at the action. A central diamond star on the jewel was powered by clockwork to rotate in wear. Nelson wore the Chelengk on his hat like a turban jewel, sparking a fashion craze for similar jewels in England. The jewel became his trademark to be endlessly copied in portraits and busts to this day. After Trafalgar, the Chelengk was inherited by Nelson's family and worn at the Court of Queen Victoria. Sold at auction in 1895 it eventually found its way to the newly opened National Maritime Museum in Greenwich where it was a star exhibit. In 1951 the jewel was stolen in a daring raid by an infamous cat-burglar and lost forever. For the first time, Martyn Downer tells the extraordinary true story of the Chelengk: from its gift to Nelson by the Sultan of Turkey to its tragic post-war theft, charting the jewel's journey through history and forging sparkling new and intimate portraits of Nelson, of his friends and rivals, and of the woman he loved."--Provided by the publisher. 2017. • BOOK • 1 copy available. 92NELSON

Wellington and the Siege of San Sebastian, 1813 / Bruce Collins. "Bruce Collins's in-depth reassessment of the Duke of Wellington's siege of San Sebastian during the Peninsular War is a fascinating reconstruction of one of the most challenging siege operations Wellington's army undertook, and it is an important contribution to the history of siege warfare during the Napoleonic Wars. He sets the siege in the context of the practice of siege warfare during the period and Wellington's campaign strategies following his victory at the Battle of Vitoria. He focuses on how the army assigned to the siege was managed and draws on the records of the main military departments for the first time to give an integrated picture of its operations in the field. The close support given by the Royal Navy is a key aspect of his narrative. This broad approach, based in fresh archive research, offers an original perspective on both San Sebastian's significance and the nature of siege warfare in this period."--Provided by the publisher. 2017. • BOOK • 1 copy available. 355.48"1813"(460)

Admiralty despatches : the story of the war from the battlefront 1939-45 /G. H. Bennett. "From at least as early as the eighteenth century it became a tradition that, following operations involving the Royal Navy, the commanding admiral would report to the Admiralty in the form of an official despatch. Following the French wars of 1792-1815 the despatches were published and that set a precedent. After the Second World War the relevant despatches for 1939-45 were published (from 1947 onwards) as supplements to the London Gazette. The despatches reproduced here, introduced and annotated by Professor Bennett, cover events with a huge bearing on the outcome of the war, such as the convoys in the Mediterranean and to Russia, major amphibious operations and raids such as Dieppe, alongside some of the minor operations involving the Royal Navy and, of course, D-Day. These important documents are published here in an accessible form. We are fortunate that they were written in a way designed to be understood by the public at the time. What they reveal, not only about naval operations but about their authors, is fascinating.--Provided by the publisher. 2017. • BOOK • 1 copy available. 354.71

Captives of war : British prisoners of war in Europe in the Second World War /Clare Makepeace. "This is a pioneering history of the experience of captivity of British prisoners of war in Europe during the Second World War, focussing on how they coped and came to terms with wartime imprisonment. Clare Makepeace reveals the ways in which POWs psychologically responded to surrender, the camaraderie and individualism that dominated life in the camps, and how, in their imagination, they constantly breached the barbed wire perimeter to be with their loved ones at home. Through the diaries, letters and log books written by seventy-five POWs, along with psychiatric research and reports, she explores the mental strains that tore through POWs' minds and the challenges that they faced upon homecoming. The book tells the story of wartime imprisonment through the love, fears, fantasies, loneliness, frustration and guilt that these men felt, shedding new light on what the experience of captivity meant for these men both during the war and after their liberation."--Provided by publisher. 2017. • BOOK • 1 copy available. 355.257.3

Surviving slavery in the British Caribbean / Randy M. Browne. "Atlantic slave societies were notorious deathtraps. In Surviving Slavery in the British Caribbean, Randy M. Browne looks past the familiar numbers of life and death and into a human drama in which enslaved Africans and their descendants struggled to survive against their enslavers, their environment, and sometimes one another. Grounded in the nineteenth-century British colony of Berbice, one of the Atlantic world's best-documented slave societies and the last frontier of slavery in the British Caribbean, Browne argues that the central problem for most enslaved people was not how to resist or escape slavery but simply how to stay alive. Guided by the voices of hundreds of enslaved people preserved in an extraordinary set of legal records, Browne reveals a world of Caribbean slavery that is both brutal and breathtakingly intimate. Field laborers invoked abolitionist-inspired legal reforms to protest brutal floggings, spiritual healers conducted secretive nighttime rituals, anxious drivers weighed the competing pressures of managers and the condition of their fellow slaves in the fields, and women fought back against abusive masters and husbands. Browne shows that at the core of enslaved people's complicated relationships with their enslavers and one another was the struggle to live in a world of death."--Provided by the publisher 2017 • BOOK • 1 copy available. 326.4

Secret cures of slaves : people, plants, and medicine in the eighteenth-century Atlantic world /Londa Schiebinger. "In the natural course of events, humans fall sick and die. The history of medicine bristles with attempts to find new and miraculous remedies, to work with and against nature to restore humans to health and well-being. In this book, Londa Schiebinger examines medicine and human experimentation in the Atlantic World, exploring the circulation of people, disease, plants, and knowledge between Europe, Africa, and the Americas. She traces the development of a colonial medical complex from the 1760s, when a robust experimental culture emerged in the British and French West Indies, to the early 1800s, when debates raged about banning the slave trade and, eventually, slavery itself. Massive mortality among enslaved Africans and European planters, soldiers, and sailors fueled the search for new healing techniques. Amerindian, African, and European knowledges competed to cure diseases emerging from the collision of peoples on newly established, often poorly supplied, plantations. But not all knowledge was equal. Highlighting the violence and fear endemic to colonial struggles, Schiebinger explores aspects of African medicine that were not put to the test, such as Obeah and vodou. This book analyzes how and why specific knowledges were blocked, discredited, or held secret."--Provided by the publisher. 2017. • BOOK • 1 copy available. 610.72/408996073

A Clear Case of Genius : Room 40's Code-breaking Pioneer /Admiral Sir Reginald 'Blinker' Hall This book produces the surviving chapters of an autobiography by Sir Reginald Hall, who served as the Royal Navy's Chief of Intelligence throughout the First World War, after the Admirality originally banned their publication in 1933. Presented alongside extensive commentary on the text by Philip Vickers, Hall's memoir provides unique insight into the critical role played by intelligence during the war, particularly in reference to the Zimmerman Telegram. Includes 32 pages of black and white plates. 2017. • BOOK • 1 copy available. 92HALL, REGINALD

British warships of the Second World War : detailed in the original builders' plans /John Roberts. "This volume reproduces a representative selection of official plans depicting the main types of warship with which the Royal Navy fought World War II. Carefully chosen from the incomparable collection at the National Maritime Museum, these range from battleships and fleet aircraft carriers, through cruisers, destroyers and submarines, to examples of the vast array of specialist vessels built during the war. Concentrating on as-fitted drawings which show the warships as they first entered service, this collection offers an unprecedented wealth of details of some of the Royal Navy's most famous ships. It also documents how their appearance changed over time. Printed in full color to highlight the modifications, alterations and additions appear in different shades of ink and wash. With text and detailed individual captions by one of the leading experts in the field, this book provides an insight into the warship design process and explains for the benefit of ship modelers and technical historians which types of plan contain the most valuable information." --Provided by the publisher. 2017 • FOLIO • 1 copy available. 623.82(42)"1939/1945"

The Royal Navy's Air Service in the Great War / David Hobbs "In a few short years after 1914 the Royal Navy practically invented naval air warfare, not only producing the first effective aircraft carriers, but also pioneering most of the techniques and tactics that made naval air power a reality. By 1918 the RN was so far ahead of other navies that a US Navy observer sent to study the British use of aircraft at sea concluded that 'any discussion of the subject must first consider their methods'. Indeed, by the time the war ended the RN was training for a carrier-borne attack by torpedo-bombers on the German fleet in its bases - over two decades before the first successful employment of this tactic, against the Italians at Taranto. Following two previously well-received histories of British naval aviation, David Hobbs here turns his attention to the operational and technical achievements of the Royal Naval Air Service, both at sea and ashore, from 1914 to 1918. Detailed explanations of operations, the technology that underpinned them and the people who carried them out bring into sharp focus a revolutionary period of development that changed naval warfare forever. Controversially, the RNAS was subsumed into the newly created Royal Air Force in 1918, so as the centenary of its extinction approaches, this book is a timely reminder of its true significance."--Provided by the publisher. 2017 • BOOK • 1 copy available. 359.38"1914/1918"

Off the Deep End : A History of Madness at Sea /Nic Compton "Confined in a small space for months on end, subject to ship's discipline and living on limited food supplies, many sailors of old lost their minds - and no wonder. Many still do. The result in some instances was bloodthirsty mutinies, such as the whaleboat Sharon whose captain was butchered and fed to the ship's pigs in a crazed attack in the Pacific. Or mob violence, such as the 147 survivors on the raft of the Medusa, who slaughtered each other in a two-week orgy of violence. So serious was the problem that the Royal Navy's own physician claimed sailors were seven times more likely to go mad than the rest of the population. Historic figures such as Christopher Columbus, George Vancouver, Fletcher Christian (leader of the munity of the Bounty) and Robert FitzRoy (founder of the Met Office) have all had their sanity questioned. More recently, sailors in today's round-the-world races often experience disturbing hallucinations, including seeing elephants floating in the sea and strangers taking the helm, or suffer complete psychological breakdown, like Donald Crowhurst. Others become hypnotised by the sea and jump to their deaths. Off the Deep End looks at the sea's physical character, how it confuses our senses and makes rational thought difficult. It explores the long history of madness at sea and how that is echoed in many of today's yacht races. It looks at the often-marginal behaviour of sailors living both figuratively and literally outside society's usual rules. And it also looks at the sea's power to heal, as well as cause, madness."--Provided by the publisher. 2017 • BOOK • 1 copy available. 613.86(26)

French warships in the age of sail 1626-1786 : design, construction, careers and fates. "The origins of a permanent French sailing navy can be traced to the work of Cardinal Richelieu in the 1620s, but this naval force declined rapidly in the 1650s and a virtually new Marine Royale had to be re-created by Colbert from 1661. Thereafter, Louis XIV"s navy grew rapidly to become the largest and most powerful in the world, at the same time establishing a reputation for the quality of its ship design that lasted until the end of sail. The eighteenth century was to see defeat and decline, revival and victory, but by 1786 the French Navy had emerged from its most successful naval war having frequently outfought or outmanoeuvred the British Navy in battle, and in the process making a major contribution to American independence. This book is the first comprehensive listing of these ships in English, and follows the pattern set by its companion volume on the 1786 - 1861 period in providing an impressive depth of information. It is organised by Rate, classification and class, with significant technical and building data, followed by highlights of the careers of each ship in every class. Thus for the first time it is possible to form a clear picture of the overall development of French warships throughout the whole of the sailing era. Certain to become the standard English-language reference work, its publication is of the utmost importance to every naval historian and general reader interested in the navies of the sailing era."--Provided by the publisher. 2017. • FOLIO • 1 copy available. 623.82(44)"1626/1786"

The curious world of Samuel Pepys and John Evelyn / Margaret Willes. "Samuel Pepys and John Evelyn are two of the most celebrated English diarists. They were also extraordinary men and close friends. This first full portrait of that friendship transforms our understanding of their times. Pepys was earthy and shrewd, while Evelyn was a genteel aesthete, but both were drawn to intellectual pursuits. Brought together by their work to alleviate the plight of sailors caught up in the Dutch wars, they shared an inexhaustible curiosity for life and for the exotic. Willes explores their mutual interests--diary-keeping, science, travel, and a love of books--and their divergent enthusiasms, Pepys for theater and music, Evelyn for horticulture and garden design. Through the richly documented lives of two remarkable men, Willes revisits the history of London and of England in an age of regicide, revolution, fire, and plague to reveal it also as a time of enthralling possibility."--Provided by the publisher. 2017 • BOOK • 1 copy available. 92PEPYS

Migrants of the British diaspora since the 1960s : stories from modern nomads /A. James Hammerton. "This is the first social history to explore experiences of British emigrants from the peak years of the 1960s to the emigration resurgence of the turn of the twentieth century. It explores migrant experiences in Australia, Canada and New Zealand alongside other countries. The book charts the gradual reinvention of the 'British diaspora' from a postwar migration of austerity to a modern migration of prosperity. It offers a different way of writing migration history, based on life histories but exploring mentalities as well as experiences, against a setting of deep social and economic change. Key moments are the 1970s loss of Britons' privilege in Commonwealth destination countries, 'Thatcher's refugees' in the 1980s and shifting attitudes to cosmopolitanism and global citizenship by the 1990s. It charts a long process of change from the 1960s to patterns of discretionary and nomadic migration, which became more common practice from the end of the twentieth century."--Provided by the publisher. 2017. • BOOK • 1 copy available. 325.2(42)

Ocean liners : glamour, speed and style /edited by Daniel Finamore and Ghislaine Wood. "The golden age of ocean liners is inextricably linked with the key decorative trends of the 20th century Art Nouveau, Art Deco, and Modernism. This lavish visual feast explores the technical, aesthetic, cultural, and political factors that came together to define such an iconic mode of travel, considering all aspects of the ocean liner experience, from the striking marketing images, aspirational booking offices, and landmark headquarters of the major shipping companies to the ships opulent interiors and triumphs of engineering. The fashions required for a crossing are also explored, along with the evolution of the ships social and public spaces, as once-rigid class structures and attitudes became relaxed. Closing the book is an exploration of the impact of the ocean liner on the wider art and design world an icon of modernity that influenced everyone from the Futurists to Le Corbusier."--Provided by the publisher. 2017. • FOLIO • 1 copy available. 629.123.3

The Dunkirk Evacuation in 100 Objects : The Story Behind Operation Dynamo in 1940 /Martin Mace "At 18.57 hours on Sunday, 26 May 1940, the Admiralty issued the directive which instigated the start of Operation Dynamo. This was the order to rescue the British Expeditionary Force from the French port of Dunkirk and the beaches surrounding it. The Admiralty believed that it would only be able to rescue 45,000 men over the course of the following two days, 'at the end of which', read the signal to Admiral Ramsey at Dover, 'it was probable that evacuation would be terminated by enemy action'. The Admiralty, however, was wrong. Between 26 May and 4 June 1940, when Dynamo officially ended, an armada of ships, big and small, naval and civilian achieved what had been considered impossible. In fact, in this period a total of 338,682 men had been disembarked at British ports. Such a figure has exceeded the expectations of most. Little wonder, therefore, that an editorial in The New York Times at the beginning of June declared, 'So long as the English tongue survives, the word Dunkirk will be spoken with reverence'. Through 100 objects, from the wreck of a ship through to a dug-up rifle, and individual photographs to large memorials, all of which represent a moving snapshot of the past, the author sets out to tell the story of what came to be known as The Miracle of Dunkirk. The full-colour photographs of each 100 items are accompanied by detailed explanations of the object and the people and events which make them so special or relevant."--Provided by the publisher. 2017. • BOOK • 1 copy available. 940.542.1"1940"

Early Dutch maritime cartography : the North Holland school of cartography (c.1580-c.1620) /Gèunter Schilder. "This book is an exposition of an important, yet previously unknown chapter in the history of Dutch maritime cartography. While Amsterdam was developing into Europe's most vital commercial hub in the seventeenth century, demanding and controlling the production of maps and sea-charts, a major School of Cartography was already flourishing in the so-called 'Kop van Noord-Holland' region just north of Amsterdam. This School specialised in the production of small-scale charts of larger areas, including the European coastlines and the Indian and Atlantic Oceans. Its masters used to call themselves 'caert-schrijvers' or 'map-scribes' when clarifying their profession. The cities of Enkhuizen and Edam were important trading ports and as such provided an ideal environment for developing into centres of cartography, serving sea-borne navigation. Apart from the well-known printed pilot guides by Lucas Jansz Waghenaer, the output of these 'caert-schrijvers' consists mainly of manuscript charts on vellum. Copies, though few they are, nowadays can be found across the globe. Sea-charts provided invaluable on-board navigation assistance to ship captains. However, another surprising contemporaneous purpose for financing these charts become popular. Rich ship owners and merchants would commission new charts to serve as wall-decoration as well as a reference point for their maritime-related conversations. They feature a decorative lay-out filled with magnificent colours. Moreover, many of these charts are embellished with miniature paintings, certainly making them some of the most beautiful exemplars ever produced by Dutch cartography during its Golden Age."--Provided by the publisher [2017] • FOLIO • 1 copy available. 528.9(492)

The British Navy in the Mediterranean / John D. Grainger "This book presents a comprehensive overview of the activities of the British navy in the Mediterranean Sea from the earliest times until the twentieth century. It traces developments from Anglo-Saxon times, through the Crusades, and to the seventeenth century, when the Barbary corsairs became a major problem. It outlines Britain's involvement in the wars of the long eighteenth century, when Britain obtained bases at Gibraltar, Minorca and Malta and repeatedly defeated the French and Spanish navies. It examines the navy's activities during the First and Second World Wars, when the Mediterranean was again of crucial strategic significance and a major theatre of war, and goes on to consider Britain's withdrawal from the Mediterranean in the later twentieth century. Throughout, the book relates naval activity to patterns of trade, including the rise and decline of the Levant Company, and to wider international politics."--Provided by the publisher. 2017. • BOOK • 1 copy available. 355.353(42:262)

Cul de Sac : patrimony, capitalism, and slavery in French Saint-Domingue /Paul Cheney. "In the eighteenth century, the Cul de Sac plain in Saint-Domingue, now Haiti, was a vast open-air workhouse of sugar plantations. This microhistory of one plantation owned by the Ferron de la Ferronnayses, a family of Breton nobles, draws on remarkable archival finds to show that despite the wealth such plantations produced, they operated in a context of social, political, and environmental fragility that left them weak and crisis prone. Focusing on correspondence between the Ferronnayses and their plantation managers, 'Cul de Sac' proposes that the Caribbean plantation system, with its reliance on factory-like production processes and highly integrated markets, was a particularly modern expression of eighteenth-century capitalism. But it rested on a foundation of economic and political traditionalism that stymied growth and adaptation. The result was a system heading toward collapse as planters, facing a series of larger crises in the French empire, vainly attempted to rein in the inherent violence and instability of the slave society they had built. In recovering the lost world of the French Antillean plantation, 'Cul de Sac' ultimately reveals how the capitalism of the plantation complex persisted not as a dynamic source of progress, but from the inertia of a degenerate system headed down an economic and ideological dead end."--Provided by the publisher. 2017. • BOOK • 1 copy available. 382:664.1

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