For its first eighty-five years, the United States was only a minor naval power. Its fledgling fleet had been virtually annihilated during the War of Independence and was mostly trapped in port by the end of the War of 1812. In this wide-ranging yet concise survey of the U.S. Navy from the colonial era through the Civil War, Dull draws on American, British, and French history to reveal how navies reflect diplomatic, political, economic, and social...

Frank Mildmay is a rogue and a rascal who cuts a memorable swath as he moves up the ranks of the early 19th-century Royal navy. Whether seducing pretty girls ashore, braving hurricanes at sea or scrambling aboard a French privateer with cutlass bared, Mildmay and his adventures live on!

Investigating the fascination pirates hold over the popular imagination, Peter Earle takes the fable of ocean-going Robin Hoods sailing under the "banner of King Death" and contrasts it with the murderous reality of robbery, torture and death and the freedom of a short, violent life on the high seas. The Pirate Wars charts 250 years of piracy, from Cornwall to the Caribbean, from the 16th century to the hanging of the last pirate captain in Boston...

"From thunderous broadsides traded between wooden sailing ships on Lake Erie, to the carrier battles of World War II, to the devastating high-tech action in the Persian Gulf, here is a gripping history of five key battles that defined the evolution of naval warfare-and the course of the American nation. Acclaimed military historian Craig Symonds offers spellbinding narratives of crucial engagements, showing how each battle reveals the transformation...

While on a mission to persuade English privateers to uphold a peace treaty with Spain, Varian St. Clare, the king's aristocratic envoy, finds himself the prisoner of Juliet Dante, the daughter of the notorious Pirate Wolf, who, amidst danger and intrigue, captures his heart.

The navy created by the people of Athens in ancient Greece was one of the finest fighting forces in the history of the world and the model for all other national navies to come. The Athenian navy built a civilization, empowered the world's first democracy, and led a band of ordinary citizens on a voyage of discovery that altered the course of history. Its defeat of the Persian fleet at Salamis in 480 B.C.E. launched the Athenian Golden Age and preserved...

William Seymour grows up on shipboard in the Royal Navy, after his father is hanged during the mutiny at the Nore (1797), and later, he is impressed into the crew of a daring smuggler. This amusing and exciting novel blends in the classic true tale of an English captain who deliberately lost his frigate on a lee shore, in order to wreck a French line-of-battle ship.

The fourth book in the Alan Lewrie series. 1783: His Majesty's secret agent... Back from war in the Americas, young navy veteran Alan Lewrie finds London pure pleasure. Then, at Plymouth he boards the trading ship Telesto to find out why merchantmen are disappearing in the East Indies. Between the pungent shores of Calcutta and teeming Canton, Lewrie-reunited with his scoundrel father-discovers a young French captain, backed by an armada of Mindanaon...

It is 1784, and His Majesty's frigate "Undine" sets sail from Spithead for India. Europe may be at peace, but in colonial waters the promises of statesmen count for little and the bloody struggle for supremacy goes on. Richard Bolitho undertakes a task that would be better handled by a squadron.

Written by the renowned authority on ancient ships and seafaring Lionel Casson, The Ancient Mariners has long served the needs of all who are interested in the sea, from the casual reader to the professional historian. This completely revised edition takes into account the fresh information that has appeared since the book was first published in 1959, especially that from archaeology's newest branch, marine archaeology. Casson does what no other author...