Download or read book The Gulf The Making of An American Sea written by Jack E. Davis and published by Liveright Publishing. This book was released on 2017-03-14 with total page 448 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Winner of the 2018 Pulitzer Prize for History Winner of the 2017 Kirkus Prize for Nonfiction A National Book Critics Circle Award for Nonfiction Finalist A New York Times Notable Book of 2017 One of the Washington Post's Best Books of the Year In this “cri de coeur about the Gulf’s environmental ruin” (New York Times), “Davis has written a beautiful homage to a neglected sea” (front page, New York Times Book Review). Hailed as a “nonfiction epic . . . in the tradition of Jared Diamond’s best-seller Collapse, and Simon Winchester’s Atlantic” (Dallas Morning News), Jack E. Davis’s The Gulf is “by turns informative, lyrical, inspiring and chilling for anyone who cares about the future of ‘America’s Sea’ ” (Wall Street Journal). Illuminating America’s political and economic relationship with the environment from the age of the conquistadors to the present, Davis demonstrates how the Gulf’s fruitful ecosystems and exceptional beauty empowered a growing nation. Filled with vivid, untold stories from the sportfish that launched Gulfside vacationing to Hollywood’s role in the country’s first offshore oil wells, this “vast and welltold story shows how we made the Gulf . . . [into] a ‘national sacrifice zone’ ” (Bill McKibben). The first and only study of its kind, The Gulf offers “a unique and illuminating history of the American Southern coast and sea as it should be written” (Edward O. Wilson).

Download or read book The American Sea written by Rezneat Milton Darnell and published by Texas A&M University Press. This book was released on 2015-06-02 with total page 586 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: For more than a decade, Rezneat Darnell worked on this major synthesis of what is known about the Gulf of Mexico. His goal: to bring a deeper understanding of “the American Sea” to students, scientists, managers, and educated citizens of the public at large. The American Sea builds on Darnell’s own research, the research of his graduate students, government agency research reports, data synthesis reports, and literature summaries to present a holistic view of the Gulf of Mexico. Although he is recognized as a pioneer in the study of continental shelf ecology, Darnell largely resisted specialization, remaining throughout his career “the writer and bringer together of things.” Here, he has written a book that embraces history, geology, geography, meteorology, chemistry, biology, ecology, and human relations in one comprehensive reference. Although it is thorough and meticulous in coverage, what comes through in these pages is the enormity, complexity, and mystery of the world that lies just beyond the Texas vacation beach, the Louisiana wetland, or the Mexico fishing village. In addition to photographs of deep water and other organisms that are included in the book, a number of illustrations have been added to provide excellent visual material, including historical and ocean floor maps and many works of original art depicting marine species, sea turtles, fish, and crustaceans.

Download or read book America and the Sea written by Benjamin Woods Labaree and published by Mystic Seaport Museum. This book was released on 1998 with total page 704 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Spanning the centuries from maritime activities before Columbus to the nation's maritime involvement today, this rich, complex archive provides a new history of the United States from the fundamental perspective of the sea that surrounds it, and the rivers and lakes that link its vast interior to the seacoast. 350 photos, 55 in color. 10 maps.

Download or read book The Free Sea written by James Kraska and published by Naval Institute Press. This book was released on 2018-06-15 with total page 240 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: The Free Sea offers a unique, single-volume analysis of incidents in American history that affected U.S. freedom of navigation at sea. The book spans more than 200 years, beginning in the Colonial era with the Quasi-War with France in 1798 and extending to contemporary Freedom of Navigation operations in the South China Sea. Through wars and numerous crises with North Korea, North Vietnam, Cambodia, Iran, Russia and China, freedom of navigation has been a persistent challenge for the United States, a nation reliant on open seas for economic prosperity, military security and global order. This volume focuses on the struggle to retain freedom of the seas. Challenges to U.S. warships and maritime commerce have pushed, and continue to challenge, the United States to vindicate its rights through diplomatic, legal, and military means, underscoring the need for the strategic resolve in the global maritime commons.

Download or read book Sea Brothers written by Bert Bender and published by University of Pennsylvania Press. This book was released on 2015-11-16 with total page 284 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Sea-Brothers offers the most extensive analysis to date of the sea and its meaning in American literature. On the basis of his study of Melville, Crane, London, Hemingway, Matthiessen, and ten lesser-known sea-writers, Bert Bender argues that the tradition of American sea fiction did not end with the opening of the western frontier and the replacement of sailing ships by steamers. Rather, he demonstrates its continuity and vitality, identifying a central vision within the tradition and showing how particular authors draw from, transform, and contribute to it. What is most distinctive about American sea fiction, Bender contends, is its visionary, often mystical, response to the biological world and to man's perceived place in the larger universe. When Melville envisioned the sea as the essential element of life, indeed as life itself, he changed the course of American sea fiction by introducing the relevance of biological thought. But his meditations on the whale and "the ungraspable phantom of life" project a different reality from that envisioned by his successors. In American sea fiction after Melville, the influence of Origin of Species is as powerful as that of Moby Dick or the theme of sailing ships being displaced by steam. The ideal of brotherhood so central to American sea fiction was severely compromised by the biological reality of a competitive, warring nature. Twentieth-century sea fiction has continued to center on the biological world and address the possibility of democratic brotherhood, but the issues were fundamentally changed by Darwin's theories. This book will be a valuable source for students and scholars of American literature and will interest readers of sea fiction.

Download or read book The Struggle for Sea Power A Naval History of the American Revolution written by Sam Willis and published by W. W. Norton & Company. This book was released on 2016-02-15 with total page 672 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: A fascinating naval perspective on one of the greatest of all historical conundrums: How did thirteen isolated colonies, which in 1775 began a war with Britain without a navy or an army, win their independence from the greatest naval and military power on earth? The American Revolution involved a naval war of immense scope and variety, including no fewer than twenty-two navies fighting on five oceans—to say nothing of rivers and lakes. In no other war were so many large-scale fleet battles fought, one of which was the most strategically significant naval battle in all of British, French, and American history. Simultaneous naval campaigns were fought in the English Channel, the North and Mid-Atlantic, the Mediterranean, off South Africa, in the Indian Ocean, the Caribbean, the Pacific, the North Sea and, of course, off the eastern seaboard of America. Not until the Second World War would any nation actively fight in so many different theaters. In The Struggle for Sea Power, Sam Willis traces every key military event in the path to American independence from a naval perspective, and he also brings this important viewpoint to bear on economic, political, and social developments that were fundamental to the success of the Revolution. In doing so Willis offers valuable new insights into American, British, French, Spanish, Dutch, and Russian history. This unique account of the American Revolution gives us a new understanding of the influence of sea power upon history, of the American path to independence, and of the rise and fall of the British Empire.

Download or read book To Master the Boundless Sea written by Jason W. Smith and published by UNC Press Books. This book was released on 2018-04-13 with total page 281 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: As the United States grew into an empire in the late nineteenth century, notions like "sea power" derived not only from fleets, bases, and decisive battles but also from a scientific effort to understand and master the ocean environment. Beginning in the early nineteenth century and concluding in the first years of the twentieth, Jason W. Smith tells the story of the rise of the U.S. Navy and the emergence of American ocean empire through its struggle to control nature. In vividly told sketches of exploration, naval officers, war, and, most significantly, the ocean environment, Smith draws together insights from environmental, maritime, military, and naval history, and the history of science and cartography, placing the U.S. Navy's scientific efforts within a broader cultural context. By recasting and deepening our understanding of the U.S. Navy and the United States at sea, Smith brings to the fore the overlooked work of naval hydrographers, surveyors, and cartographers. In the nautical chart's soundings, names, symbols, and embedded narratives, Smith recounts the largely untold story of a young nation looking to extend its power over the boundless sea.

Download or read book Dominion from Sea to Sea written by Bruce Cumings and published by Yale University Press. This book was released on 2009-11-17 with total page 672 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: America is the first world power to inhabit an immense land mass open at both ends to the world’s two largest oceans—the Atlantic and the Pacific. This gives America a great competitive advantage often overlooked by Atlanticists, whose focus remains overwhelmingly fixed on America’s relationship with Europe. Bruce Cumings challenges the Atlanticist perspective in this innovative new history, arguing that relations with Asia influenced our history greatly. Cumings chronicles how the movement westward, from the Middle West to the Pacific, has shaped America’s industrial, technological, military, and global rise to power. He unites domestic and international history, international relations, and political economy to demonstrate how technological change and sharp economic growth have created a truly bicoastal national economy that has led the world for more than a century. Cumings emphasizes the importance of American encounters with Mexico, the Philippines, and the nations of East Asia. The result is a wonderfully integrative history that advances a strong argument for a dual approach to American history incorporating both Atlanticist and Pacificist perspectives.

Download or read book American Sea Writing written by Peter Neill and published by . This book was released on 2000 with total page 712 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: This anthology of essays captures the full sweep of America's maritime experience, with narratives from voyagers from the 17th century to the 20th century. Included are writings from Washington Irving, Edgar Allan Poe, Jack London, and more.

Download or read book People of the Sea written by W. Michael Gear and published by Macmillan. This book was released on 1994-09-15 with total page 581 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: The story of life and love, death and adventure in North America eleven thousand years ago.

Download or read book One Hundred Years of Sea Power written by George W. Baer and published by Stanford University Press. This book was released on 1996-07-01 with total page 572 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: A navy is a state's main instrument of maritime force. What it should do, what doctrine it holds, what ships it deploys, and how it fights are determined by practical political and military choices in relation to national needs. Choices are made according to the state's goals, perceived threat, maritime opportunity, technological capabilities, practical experience, and, not the least, the way the sea service defines itself and its way of war. This book is a history of the modern U.S. Navy. It explains how the Navy, in the century after 1890, was formed and reformed in the interaction of purpose, experience, and doctrine.

Download or read book In American Waters written by Daniel Finamore and published by University of Arkansas Press. This book was released on 2021-05-28 with total page 233 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: "For over 200 years, artists have been inspired to capture the beauty, violence, poetry and transformative power of the sea in American life. Oceans play a key role in American society no matter where we live, and the sea continues to inspire painters today to capture its mystery and power. In American Waters reveals that marine painting is so much more than ship portraits. In this exhibition, visitors will also discover the sea as an expansive way to reflect on American culture and environment, learn how coastal and maritime symbols moved inland across the United States, and question what it means to be "in American waters." Be transported across time and water on the wave of a diverse range of modern and historical artists including Georgia O'Keeffe, Amy Sherald, Kay WalkingStick, Norman Rockwell, Hale Woodruff, Paul Cadmus, Thomas Hart Benton, Jacob Lawrence, Valerie Hegarty, Stuart Davis, and many others"--Publisher's website

Download or read book America Sea Power and the World written by James C. Bradford and published by John Wiley & Sons. This book was released on 2022-11-29 with total page 502 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: The gold standard in college-level American naval history texts, edited by the foremost scholar in the field In the newly revised second edition of America, Sea Power and the World, a team of distinguished researchers delivers an extensive and authoritative survey of American naval history, the place of the United States in world affairs, and the role of that country’s naval forces during peacetime and wartime. Each chapter contains a comprehensive analysis of its subject as well as brief sidebars describing a key weapon or technological development of the era and a short biographical sketch of an influential leader or representative of the navy from that era. The book offers extensive illustration and maps and a throughgoing emphasis on naval policy, strategy, roles, and missions, with careful attention paid to naval operations. These factors given greater focus than the descriptions of battle tactics found in other texts. Readers will also find: A thorough introduction to sea power and the modern state system, as well as the American War for Independence at sea Comprehensive explorations of the genesis of the United States Navy from 1785 to 1806 Practical discussions of the Naval War of 1812 and the Confirmation of Independence from 1807 to 1815 and the Squadron Navy as an agent of the commercial empire until 1890 Fulsome treatments of the Second World War in the Atlantic, Mediterranean, and the Pacific, including defensive actions in the Pacific from 1937 to 1943 and offensive actions from 1943 to 1944. New chapters exclusive to the 2nd edition focused on the history of African Americans and women in the US Navy, the development of joint operations and unified command, and the naval history of the last two decades. Perfect for undergraduate students taking courses on the naval history of the United States, America, Sea Power and the World, Second Edition will also earn a place in the libraries of members of the general public interested in naval and military history.

Download or read book Sea Power written by Admiral James Stavridis, USN and published by Penguin. This book was released on 2018-06-05 with total page 386 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: From one of the most admired admirals of his generation—and the only admiral to serve as Supreme Allied Commander at NATO—comes a remarkable voyage through all of the world’s most important bodies of water, providing the story of naval power as a driver of human history and a crucial element in our current geopolitical path. From the time of the Greeks and the Persians clashing in the Mediterranean, sea power has determined world power. To an extent that is often underappreciated, it still does. No one understands this better than Admiral Jim Stavridis. In Sea Power, Admiral Stavridis takes us with him on a tour of the world’s oceans from the admiral’s chair, showing us how the geography of the oceans has shaped the destiny of nations, and how naval power has in a real sense made the world we live in today, and will shape the world we live in tomorrow. Not least, Sea Power is marvelous naval history, giving us fresh insight into great naval engagements from the battles of Salamis and Lepanto through to Trafalgar, the Battle of the Atlantic, and submarine conflicts of the Cold War. It is also a keen-eyed reckoning with the likely sites of our next major naval conflicts, particularly the Arctic Ocean, Eastern Mediterranean, and the South China Sea. Finally, Sea Power steps back to take a holistic view of the plagues to our oceans that are best seen that way, from piracy to pollution. When most of us look at a globe, we focus on the shape of the of the seven continents. Admiral Stavridis sees the shapes of the seven seas. After reading Sea Power, you will too. Not since Alfred Thayer Mahan’s legendary The Influence of Sea Power upon History have we had such a powerful reckoning with this vital subject.

Download or read book Rebels at Sea Privateering in the American Revolution written by Eric Jay Dolin and published by Liveright Publishing. This book was released on 2022-05-31 with total page 432 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Winner of the Samuel Eliot Morison Award for Naval Literature Winner of the Fraunces Tavern Museum Book Award A Massachusetts Center for the Book "Must-Read" Finalist for the New England Society Book Award Finalist for the Boston Authors Club Julia Ward Howe Book Award The bestselling author of Black Flags, Blue Waters reclaims the daring freelance sailors who proved essential to the winning of the Revolutionary War. The heroic story of the founding of the U.S. Navy during the Revolution has been told many times, yet largely missing from maritime histories of America’s first war is the ragtag fleet of private vessels that truly revealed the new nation’s character—above all, its ambition and entrepreneurial ethos. In Rebels at Sea, best-selling historian Eric Jay Dolin corrects that significant omission, and contends that privateers, as they were called, were in fact critical to the American victory. Privateers were privately owned vessels, mostly refitted merchant ships, that were granted permission by the new government to seize British merchantmen and men of war. As Dolin stirringly demonstrates, at a time when the young Continental Navy numbered no more than about sixty vessels all told, privateers rushed to fill the gaps. Nearly 2,000 set sail over the course of the war, with tens of thousands of Americans serving on them and capturing some 1,800 British ships. Privateers came in all shapes and sizes, from twenty-five foot long whaleboats to full-rigged ships more than 100 feet long. Bristling with cannons, swivel guns, muskets, and pikes, they tormented their foes on the broad Atlantic and in bays and harbors on both sides of the ocean. The men who owned the ships, as well as their captains and crew, would divide the profits of a successful cruise—and suffer all the more if their ship was captured or sunk, with privateersmen facing hellish conditions on British prison hulks, where they were treated not as enemy combatants but as pirates. Some Americans viewed them similarly, as cynical opportunists whose only aim was loot. Yet Dolin shows that privateersmen were as patriotic as their fellow Americans, and moreover that they greatly contributed to the war’s success: diverting critical British resources to protecting their shipping, playing a key role in bringing France into the war on the side of the United States, providing much-needed supplies at home, and bolstering the new nation’s confidence that it might actually defeat the most powerful military force in the world. Creating an entirely new pantheon of Revolutionary heroes, Dolin reclaims such forgotten privateersmen as Captain Jonathan Haraden and Offin Boardman, putting their exploits, and sacrifices, at the very center of the conflict. Abounding in tales of daring maneuvers and deadly encounters, Rebels at Sea presents this nation’s first war as we have rarely seen it before.

Download or read book With Sails Whitening Every Sea written by Brian Rouleau and published by Cornell University Press. This book was released on 2015-05-06 with total page 321 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Many Americans in the Early Republic era saw the seas as another field for national aggrandizement. With a merchant marine that competed against Britain for commercial supremacy and a whaling fleet that circled the globe, the United States sought a maritime empire to complement its territorial ambitions in North America. In With Sails Whitening Every Sea, Brian Rouleau argues that because of their ubiquity in foreign ports, American sailors were the principal agents of overseas foreign relations in the early republic. Their everyday encounters and more problematic interactions—barroom brawling, sexual escapades in port-city bordellos, and the performance of blackface minstrel shows—shaped how the United States was perceived overseas.Rouleau details both the mariners' "working-class diplomacy" and the anxieties such interactions inspired among federal authorities and missionary communities, who saw the behavior of American sailors as mere debauchery. Indiscriminate violence and licentious conduct, they feared, threatened both mercantile profit margins and the nation's reputation overseas. As Rouleau chronicles, the world's oceans and seaport spaces soon became a battleground over the terms by which American citizens would introduce themselves to the world. But by the end of the Civil War, seamen were no longer the nation's principal ambassadors. Hordes of wealthy tourists had replaced seafarers, and those privileged travelers moved through a world characterized by consolidated state and corporate authority. Expanding nineteenth-century America's master narrative beyond the water's edge, With Sails Whitening Every Sea reveals the maritime networks that bound the Early Republic to the wider world.

Download or read book Navalism and the Emergence of American Sea Power 1882 1893 written by Mark R. Shulman and published by Naval Inst Press. This book was released on 1995-01 with total page 239 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: How America evolved from a twelfth-ranked sea power to a first-rate imperial fleet in just eleven years.