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showing 321 library results for 'drawing'

The edge of the world : how the North Sea made us who we are /Michael Pye. "When the Roman Empire retreated, northern Europe was a barbarian outpost at the very edge of everything. A thousand years later, it was the heart of global empires and the home of science, art, enlightenment and money. We owe this transformation to the tides and storms of the North Sea. The water was dangerous, but it was far easier than struggling over land; so it was the sea that brought people together. Boats carried food and raw materials, but also new ideas and information. The seafarers raided, ruined and killed, but they also settled and coupled. With them they brought new tastes and technologies - books, clothes, manners, paintings and machines. In this dazzling historical adventure, we return to a time that is largely forgotten and watch as the modern world is born. We see the spread of money and how it paved the way for science. We see how plague terrorised even the rich and transformed daily life for the poor. We watch as the climate changed and coastlines shifted, people adapted and towns flourished. We see the arrival of the first politicians, artists, lawyers: citizens. From Viking raiders to Mongol hordes, Frisian fishermen to Hanseatic hustlers, travelling as far west as America and as far east as Byzantium, we see how the life and traffic of the seas changed everything. Drawing on an astonishing breadth of learning and packed with human stories and revelations, this is the epic drama of how we came to be who we are."--Provided by the publisher. 2014. • BOOK • 1 copy available. 913(261.2)
The alliance of pirates : Ireland and Atlantic piracy in the early seventeenth century /Connie Kelleher. "In the early part of the seventeenth-century, along the southwest coast of Ireland, piracy was a way of life. Following the outlawing of privateering in 1603 by the new king of England, disenfranchised like-minded men of the sea, many former privateers, naval sailors, ordinary seamen and traditional plunderers moved their base of operations to Ireland and formed an alliance. Within the context of the Munster Plantation, many of the pirates came to settle, some bringing families, and these men and their activities not alone influenced the socio-economic and geo-political landscape of Ireland at that time but challenged European maritime power centres, while forging links across the North Atlantic that touched the Mediterranean, Northwest Africa and the New World. Tracing the origins of this maritime plunder from the 1570s until its heyday in the opening decades of the 1600s, 'The Alliance of Pirates' analyses the nature and extent of this predation and looks at its impact and influence in Ireland and across the Atlantic. Operating during a period of emerging global maritime empires, when nations across Europe were vying for supremacy of the seas, the pirates built their own highly lucrative and powerful piratical state. Drawing on extensive primary and secondary historical sources Connie Kelleher explores who these pirates were, their main theatre of operations and the characters that aided and abetted them. Archaeological evidence uniquely supports the investigation and provides a tangible cultural link through time to the pirates, their cohorts and their bases."--Provided by the publisher. 2020. • BOOK • 1 copy available. 940.2
The last embassy : the Dutch mission of 1795 and the forgotten history of western encounters with China /Tonio Andrade. "George Macartney's disastrous 1793 mission to China plays a central role in the prevailing narrative of modern Sino-European relations. Summarily dismissed by the Qing court, Macartney failed in nearly all of his objectives, perhaps setting the stage for the Opium Wars of the 19th century and the mistrust that still marks the relationship today. But not all European encounters with China were disastrous. The Last Embassy tells the story of the Dutch mission of 1795, bringing to light a dramatic but little-known episode that transforms our understanding of the history of China and the West. Drawing on a wealth of archival material, Tonio Andrade paints a panoramic and multifaceted portrait of an age marked by intrigues and war. China was on the brink of rebellion. Enduring a harrowing voyage, the Dutch mission was to be the last European diplomatic delegation ever received in the traditional Chinese court. Andrade shows how, in contrast to the British emissaries, the Dutch were men with deep knowledge of Asia who respected regional diplomatic norms and were committed to understanding China on its own terms. The Last Embassy reveals that the Qing court, mischaracterized as arrogant and narrow-minded by British diplomats and historians, was in fact open, flexible, curious, and very cosmopolitan."--Provided by the publisher. 2021. • BOOK • 1 copy available. 327.49205109/033
Roger of Lauria (c.1250-1305) : 'admiral of admirals' /Charles D. Stanton. "Just before Vespers on 30 March 1282 at the Church of the Holy Spirit on the outskirts of Palermo, a drunken soldier of the occupying French forces of Charles of Anjou accosted a young Sicilian noblewoman. It sparked a bloody conflagration, the so-called War of the Sicilian Vespers, that would ultimately involve every part of the Mediterranean. The struggle for the coveted throne of Sicily eventually enmeshed all the great powers of medieval Europe-- the Pope, the Byzantine Emperor and the kings of France, England and Aragon. Because the core of the Kingdom of Sicily was a wealthy, strategic island dominating the center of the Mediterranean, the battles were fought mostly at sea. And in war at sea, a single figure proved pre-eminent: Roger of Lauria-- Aragon's "Admiral of Admirals". In the course of some twenty years of naval combat, he orchestrated decisive victories in six pitched battles and numerous limited actions, never once suffering a defeat: a feat never equalled-- not even by the legendary Lord Horatio Nelson. Drawing from multiple Sicilian and Catalan sources as well as Angevin and Aragonese registers, this chronological narrative details the tactics and strategy Lauria employed to become the most successful galley fleet commander of the Middle Ages, while highlighting a crucial conflict at a pivotal point in European history, long overshadowed by the Hundred Years War"--Provided by the publisher. 2019. • BOOK • 1 copy available. 946/.55022092
Hunt the Bismarck : the pursuit of Germany's most famous battleship /Angus Konstam. "In the spring of 1941, the Bismarck was one of the most powerful warships in the world, and the single greatest threat to both the Royal navy and the vital Atlantic convoys that the navy sought to protect. Having entered service in the summer of 1940, she was well armed, with eight 15in. guns as well as a powerful array of lighter weapons, and her armoured protection had earned her the reputation of being unsinkable. For nine m onths she remained in port as a latent threat to Britain's vital maritime lifeline whilst Germany's U-boats caused devastation in the Atlantic, sinking hundreds of thousands of tons of Allied shipping. However, although the Battle of the Atlantic was going favourably for the Germans, they lacked sufficient U-boats to have a truly decisive effect on the war. More resources were required, and those at hand included the mighty Bismarck. Consequently, throughout the early months of 1941, both the Axis and the Allied naval powers began to prepare themselves for the inevitable sortie of the Bismarck into the Atlantic. Finally, in May, she slipped her anchors in Gotenhafen Bay, set to break out into the Atlantic Ocean and devastate Atlantic convoys - but the Allies were ready for her. In the Bismarck's way was the Royal Navy's Home Fleet based in Scapa Flow, reinforced by screening forces covering the routes from the North Sea into the North Atlantic. The greatest naval conflict in the Battle of the Atlantic was about to begin. Drawing on a wealth of first-hand accounts and extensive research, this fast-paced narrative from renowned naval historian Angus Konstam tells the story of Bismarck's epic and final voyage."--Provided by the publisher. 2019. • BOOK • 1 copy available. 940.545943
The Baltimore Sabotage Cell : German agents, American traitors, and the U-boat Deutschland during World War I /Dwight R. Messimer. "By the summer of 1915 Germany was faced with two major problems in fighting World War I: how to break the British blockade and how to stop or seriously disrupt the British supply line across the Atlantic. The solution to the former was to find a way over, through, or under it. Aircraft in those days were too primitive, too short range, and too underpowered to accomplish this, and Germany lacked the naval strength to force a passage through the blockade. But if Germany could build a fleet of cargo U-boats that were large enough to carry meaningful loads and had the range to make a round trip between Germany and the United States without refueling, the blockade might be successfully broken. Since the German navy could not cut Britain's supply line to America, another answer lay in sabotaging munitions factories, depots, and ships, as well as infecting horses and mules at the western end of the supply line. German agents, with American sympathizers, successfully carried out more than fifty attacks involving fires and explosions and spread anthrax and glanders on the East Coast before America's entry into the war on 6 April 1917. Breaking the blockade with a fleet of cargo U-boats provided the lowest risk of drawing America into the war; at the same time, sabotage was incompatible with Germany's diplomatic goal of keeping the United States out of the war. The two solutions were very different, but the fact that both campaigns were run by intelligence agencies - the Etappendienst (navy) and the Geheimdienst (army), through the agency of one man, Paul Hilken, in one American city, Baltimore, make them inseparable. Those solutions created the dichotomy that produced the U-boat Deutschland and the Baltimore Sabotage Cell. Here, Messimer provides the first study of the degree to which U.S. citizens were enlisted in Germany's sabotage operations and debunks many myths that surround the Deutschland."--Provided by the publisher. 2015 • BOOK • 1 copy available. 940.4/8743
Women and English piracy, 1540-1720 : partners and victims of crime /John C. Appleby. "Piracy was one of the most gendered criminal activities during the early modern period. As a form of maritime enterprise and organized criminality, it attracted thousands of male recruits whose venturing acquired a global dimension as piratical activity spread across the oceans and seas of the world. At the same time, piracy affected the lives of women in varied ways. Adopting a fresh approach to the subject, this study explores the relationships and contacts between women and pirates during a prolonged period of intense and shifting enterprise. Drawing on a wide body of evidence and based on English and Anglo-American patterns of activity, it argues that the support of female receivers and maintainers was vital to the persistence of piracy around the British Isles at least until the early seventeenth century. The emergence of long-distance and globalized predation had far-reaching consequences for female agency. Within colonial America, women continued to play a role in networks of support for mixed groups of pirates and sea rovers; at the same time, such groups of predators established contacts with women of varied backgrounds in the Caribbean and the Indian Ocean. As such, female agency formed part of the economic and social infrastructure which supported maritime enterprise of contested legality. But it co-existed with the victimisation of women by pirates, including the Barbary corsairs. As this study demonstrates, the interplay between agency and victimhood was manifest in a campaign of petitioning which challenged male perceptions of women's status as victims. Against this background, the book also examines the role of a small number of women pirates, including the lives of Mary Read and Ann Bonny, while addressing the broader issue of limited female recruitment into piracy."--P. [4] of cover. 2013. • BOOK • 1 copy available. 341.362.1-055.2
The Battle of Jutland / by Jon Sutherland and Diane Canwell. "The Battle of Jutland was the greatest naval engagement of the First World War, if not any war. The events leading up to the battle gave the indication that it would be a major British naval victory. But as it would transpire the results were a lot less clearcut. It had been the German vessels that had soured relations between Britain and Germany, but in the end the fleet had proved inadequate. Whilst the Germans claimed a victory, in Britain, Jutland was celebrated as another Trafalgar. Detailing the account of this colossal sea battle, the authors draw on official reports and despatches, as well as notable accounts by those such as Rudyard Kipling. The battle is placed in its context in the war and the opposing fleets and commanders are examined. The initial German plan and the British response provided the catalyst for the engagement and the battle cruiser and fleet action is examined in detail, drawing on eyewitness accounts. The five distinct phases of the battle began with the first encounter between the opposing battle cruisers. The second phase saw the Germans pursuing what they believed to be the British fleet. Then suddenly they came under heavy bombardment from the British main fleet under Jellicoe. After Admiral Scheer failed to escape into the Baltic, the final phase was fought with the Germans in full retreat. The book analyses the damage assessment on both sides and their true losses. A full order of battle is provided, with many illustrations of the key commanders. An extensive bibliography and reference section supports the work."--Provided by the publisher. 2007. • BOOK • 1 copy available. 940.456
Black women abolitionists : a study in activism, 1828-1860 /Shirley J. Yee. "By virtue of being both black and female in antebellum America, black women abolitionists confronted a particular set of tensions. Whether they supported the movement directly or indirectly, cooperated with whites or primarily with other blacks, worked in groups or independently, were well off financially or struggled to make ends meet, their lives reflected the complex dynamics of race, sex, and class. Against the background of slavery, constructing a life in "freedom" meant adopting many of the values of free white society, symbolized in part by male dominance and female subordination. In championing both their race and their sex, female black abolitionists found themselves caught between the sexism of the antislavery movement and the racism of the (white) women's movement. Throughout their writing, speeches, petitions, and participation in antislavery, and self-help organizations, these women established a pattern of black female activism--centered on community-building, political organizing, and forging a network of friendships with other activists--that served as a model for later generations of black women. Drawing on a wide array of previously untapped primary sources, Shirley Yee examines the activism of black women in the Northeast, the Midwest, and to some extent, California and Canada. The activists' experiences render heartbreakingly clear the pervasiveness of middle-class white values in antebellum America and the contradictions and ironies inherent in prevailing conceptions of "freedom"--Provided by the publisher. 1993. • BOOK • 1 copy available. 305.48/896073
The origin of others / Toni Morrison ; with a foreword by Ta-Nehisi Coates. "America's foremost novelist reflects on the themes that preoccupy her work and increasingly dominate national and world politics: race, fear, borders, the mass movement of peoples, the desire for belonging. What is race and why does it matter? What motivates the human tendency to construct Others? Why does the presence of Others make us so afraid? Drawing on her Norton Lectures, Toni Morrison takes up these and other vital questions bearing on identity in The Origin of Others. In her search for answers, the novelist considers her own memories as well as history, politics, and especially literature. Harriet Beecher Stowe, Ernest Hemingway, William Faulkner, Flannery O'Connor, and Camara Laye are among the authors she examines. Readers of Morrison's fiction will welcome her discussions of some of her most celebrated books - Beloved, Paradise, and A Mercy. If we learn racism by example, then literature plays an important part in the history of race in America, both negatively and positively. Morrison writes about nineteenth-century literary efforts to romance slavery, contrasting them with the scientific racism of Samuel Cartwright and the banal diaries of the plantation overseer and slaveholder Thomas Thistlewood. She looks at configurations of blackness, notions of racial purity, and the ways in which literature employs skin color to reveal character or drive narrative. Expanding the scope of her concern, she also addresses globalization and the mass movement of peoples in this century. National Book Award winner Ta-Nehisi Coates provides a foreword to Morrison's most personal work of nonfiction to date."--Provided by the publisher. 2017. • BOOK • 1 copy available. 808.835
Art and the war at sea 1914-45 / edited by Christine Riding. "While many publications have engaged with the events, artists and poets associated with war fought on land, the cultural history of the war at sea has been neglected. This original book redresses this imbalance by being the first study to focus on the art of war in the first half of the 20th century from a distinctly naval and maritime perspective. Drawing on the first-class collections of paintings, works on paper (including drawings, photography and posters) and archival material, such as private papers, journals and memoirs, held at the National Maritime Museum, London, the artistic response to the war at sea is analysed in the context of specific focus points such as the major arenas of naval conflict; life on board ships, aircraft carriers and submarines; the experiences of prisoners of war and the response of artists to the commemoration and legacy of key maritime events. Featuring the work of established and lesser known artists, this publication will make an invaluable contribution to war art scholarship while also presenting a little known aspect of a major museum collection. Contents: Preface; Introduction, Christine Riding; Chapter 1: Pictorial Narratives of the War at Sea: Wyllie, Eurich and Wilkinson, Pieter van der Merwe; In Focus: The Sinking of the Lusitania, Robert J. Blyth; Chapter 2: The Face of War: Officers and Ratings, Melanie Vandenbrouck; In Focus: 'Something wrong with our bloody ships today': The Battle of Jutland, Andrew Choong Han Lin; Chapter 3: Above and Below Deck, Melanie Vandenbrouck; In Focus: Weary Watching and Waiting: Daily Life in the Battle Fleets of the First World War, Jeremy Michell; Chapter 4: From Service to Captivity: The Artist as Eyewitness, Melanie Vandenbrouck; In Focus: White Ensigns and Red Dusters: The Royal and Merchant Navies in Wartime, John Graves; Chapter 5: Art, Artists and the Home Front, Amy Miller and Christine Riding; In Focus: Merchant Navy Comforts, Amy Miller; Public Memorials, Symbolic Spaces, Christine Riding; In Focus: Rozanne Hawksley: War, Memory and Commemoration, Amy Miller; Endnotes; Bibliography; Picture credits; Index."--Provided by the publisher. 2015. • BOOK • 2 copies available.
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
Mutiny on the Spanish Main : HMS Hermione and the Royal Navy's revenge /Angus Konstam. "In 1797 the 32-gun Royal Navy frigate HMS Hermione was serving in the Caribbean, at the forefront of Britain's bitter sea war against Spain and Revolutionary France. Its commander, the sadistic and mercurial Captain Hugh Pigot ruled through terror, flogging his men mercilessly and pushing them beyond the limits of human endurance. On the night of 21 September 1797, past breaking point and drunk on stolen rum, the crew rebelled, slaughtering Pigot and nine of his officers in the bloodiest mutiny in the history of the Royal Navy. Handing the ship over to the Spanish, the crew fled, sparking a manhunt that would last a decade. Seeking to wipe clean this stain on its name, the Royal Navy pursued the traitorous mutineers relentlessly, hunting them across the globe, and, in 1801, seized the chance to recover its lost ship in one of the most daring raids of the Age of Fighting Sail. Anchored in a heavily fortified Venezuelan harbour, the Hermione - now known as the Santa Cecilia - was retaken in a bold night-time action, stolen out from under the Spanish guns. Back in British hands, the Hermione was renamed once more - its new identity a stark warning to would-be mutineers: Retribution. Drawing on letters, reports, ships' logs, and memoirs of the period, as well as previously unpublished Spanish sources, Angus Konstam intertwines extensive research with a fast-paced but balanced account to create a fascinating retelling of one of the most notorious events in the history of the Royal Navy, and its extraordinary, wide-ranging aftermath."--Provided by the publisher. 2020. • BOOK • 2 copies available. 359.1334
The interest : how the British establishment resisted the abolition of slavery /Michael Taylor. "For two hundred years, the abolition of slavery in Britain has been a cause for self-congratulation - but no longer. In 1807, Parliament outlawed the slave trade in the British Empire, but for the next quarter of a century, despite heroic and bloody rebellions, more than 700,000 people in British colonies remained enslaved. And when a renewed abolitionist campaign was mounted, making slave ownership the defining political and moral issue of the day, emancipation was fiercely resisted by the powerful 'West India Interest'. Supported by nearly every leading figure of the British establishment - including Canning, Peel and Gladstone, The Times and Spectator - the Interest ensures that slavery survived until 1833 and that when abolition came at last, compensation worth ¹340 billion in today's money was given not to the enslaved but to the slaveholders, entrenchign the power of their families to shape modern Britian to this day. Drawing on major new research, this long-overdue and groundbreaking history provides a gripping narrative account of the tumultuous and often violent battle - between rebels and planters, between abolitionists and the pro-slavery establishment - that divided and scarred the nation during these years of upheaval. The Interest reveals the lengths to which British leaders went to defend the indefensible in the name of profit, showing that the ultimate triumph of abolition came at a bitter cost and was one of the darkest and most dramatic episodes in British history."--Provided by the publisher. 2020. • BOOK • 1 copy available. 306.3620941
Maritime animals : ships, species, stories /edited by Kaori Nagai. "This volume explores nonhuman animals' involvement with human maritime activities in the age of sail - as well as the myriad multispecies connections formed across different geographical locations knitted together by the long history of global ship movement. Far from treating the ship as a confined space defined by the sea, Maritime Animals considers the ship's connections to broader contexts and networks and covers a variety of locations, from the Canadian Arctic to the Pacific Islands. Each chapter focuses on the oceanic experiences of a particular species, from ship vermin, animals transported onboard as food, and animal specimens for scientific study to livestock, companion and working animals, deep-sea animals that find refuge in shipwrecks, and terrestrial animals that hunker down on flotsam and jetsam. Drawing on recent scholarship in animal studies, maritime studies, environmental humanities, and a wide range of other perspectives and storytelling approaches, Maritime Animals challenges an anthropocentric understanding of maritime history. Instead, this volume highlights the ways in which species, through their interaction with the oceans, tell stories and make histories in significant and often surprising ways. In addition to the editor, the contributors to this volume include Anna Boswell, Nancy Cushing, Lea Edgar, David Haworth, Donna Landry, Derek Lee Nelson, Jimmy Packham, Laurence Publicover, Killian Quigley, Lynette Russell, Adam Sundberg, and Thom van Dooren."--Provided by publisher. 2023 • BOOK • 1 copy available. 636.08/3