BOOK REVIEWS

Hershel Parker. Herman Melville: A Biography. of financial woe. The struggle of Herman's Vol. 1: 1819-1851. Baltimore: Johns Hopkins mother, Maria Gansevoort Melville, to keep the University Press, 1996. xx + 941 pp., b+w plates, family from disintegrating, shaped Melville's genealogical tables, documentation, index. US future. It cut off his formal education at age $39.95, cloth; ISBN 0-8018-5428-8. twelve, sent him into a series of menial jobs before he reached eighteen, and eventually forced Hershel Parker follows Herman Melville's course him to sea. Parker's detailing of the family's from his early life in Albany to his success as one finances explains why the son of patrician New of America's most popular writers of sea adven- Yorkers should have shipped on the whaler tures at mid-century. This first volume ends in Acushnet out of New Bedford in January 1841. 1851, when Melville was thirty-two and his The bulk of this first volume concerns the magnum opus, Moby-Dick, was about to reach period after the Acushnet set sail. For a writer print. At nearly nine hundred pages, this bio- who made his reputation by the sea, Melville's graphy creates a complex, composite portrait of sea experience was relatively sho rt and unpleas- Melville, built from diverse and wide-ranging ant. Parker shows that those sailors who, like sources. One comes away from it feeling bulked Melville, chose to "go ashore" before their four- up with a great knowledge of Melville and his year cruise was completed, outnumbered those family, their day to day activities, and the atmos- who toughed it out. Melville jumped ship early, phere of local and national events within which in August 1841 at the Marquesas Islands. Subse- they struggled. If at certain points one would wish quently, he spent another two years whaling and for more incisive commentary to bring Melville's wandering in the South Seas, until he enlisted on writing into focus, Parker compensates with com- the USS United States at Honolulu, and served at prehensive and impeccable scholarship. the mainmast until being disharged in Boston in Parker is eminently qualified to do justice to 1845. By Parker's reckoning, the United States his subject. He has written and edited many was Melville's Yale and Harvard, leading him volumes by and about Melville. As editor of The toward a literary career. On board, he immersed New Melville Log, continuing Jay Leyda's life himself in the ship's extensive library, soaked up project that set out in the 1940s to compile docu- the atmosphere, rehearsed the tales that would ments relevant to Melville's life and writing, later make him famous, and observed the lessons Parker writes what might best be described as a dictated by life under the Articles of War. cultural biography, encompassing an incredible Earlier attempts to reveal Melville's years documentary record of American life during spent in the South Seas have been obscured by Melville's lifetime. Parker has a compelling tale embroidered recollections of friends and relatives, to tell. He reveals the financial exigencies that muddied greatly by the fictionalizations of Mel- shaped the destiny of the Melville family during ville's tales and books. Given Melville's penchant the risk2filled days of national expansion in the for hyperbole, Parker has returned to the docu- 1820s. Melville's early life was tainted by that mentary record to set straight previous exaggera2 peculiar poverty made all the more painful given tions and confusions, using an array of documents the remembrance of wealth. His family stemmed from the whale fishery, exploration expeditions, from Revolutionary War heroes and American the South Sea missions, and the ghost log of the aristocracy on both sides. By the time of Mel- first mate on the United States. Parker also adds villesof Melville'svvville's birth in 1819, much of this glory had been important evidence of Melville's home life after squandered. Allan Melvill, by Parker's estimate a 1845. The recent discovery of papers belonging loving father, was a merchant doubly-cursed by to Herman's younger sister, Augusta, who squir- unrealistic, aristocratic ambitions and little busi- reled away manuscript fragments, letters, and ness sense. When he died in 1832, he left a legacy other documents of the Melville clan, are likely

75 76 The Northern Mariner the last big find in Melville scholarship. They ery of Shakespeare to the splendours contained in make Parkers biography timely and necessary. Moby-Dick. Parker can offer no such startling Parker nicely encapsulates the mixture of hypothesis. The surface details are all here, but intrigue, titilation and moral indignation that Parker can only hint at the inner workings of made Melvilles first book, Typee, an instant sen- Melvilles mind. He offers little insight into the sation in London and New York during 1846. phenomena of Moby-Dick's creation. Surprisingly, it made Melville Americas first The psychological portrait Parker presents media sex symbol, an "American Crusoe." Parker proves partly unsatisfactory because the story is also shows that the combination of realistic detail incomplete. By ending this volume in 1851, on and romantic speculation that characterized that "happiest day" when Melville presented Melvilles later work was present from the begin- Hawthorne with a copy of Moby-Dick, Parker ning. The account of Typee reveals Melvilles leaves the downward spiral unexplored. The com- transformation of the three week stay with the mercial failure of Moby-Dick, increasing debts, Marquesas natives into four months in Paradise accusations of madness, estrangement from his among the Cannibals. Yet Melvilles desire to wife, early loss of his sons to tuberculosis and explore philosophical and high literary topics suicide, and the final years of obscurity and destined him to write books that, as he put it, silence all lay ahead. To a writer so attuned to the "were made to fail." When the satiric, mythic and darkness, to plumbing the depths, Parker has philosophical Mardi (1848) was received with added much light. His second volume, which he confusion and silence by critics expecting more indicates is ready for publication, will need to tell sea adventures, Melville returned to the tried and a much darker, more disturbing tale. true, dashing off Redburn and White Jacket in an amazing flurry of writing during the summer of Marc Thackray 1849. However, sometime in 1850 his plan to Corner Brook, Newfoundland write about life on a whaling ship took a nose dive back into the depths. Heinrich Paasch. Paasch's Illustrated Marine Parker skillfully weaves in and out of the Dictionary. "Conway Classics"; London: Conway Augusta papers to reconstruct Melvilles daily Maritime Press, 1997. x + 206 + CIV pp., illustra2 routine as he wrote Moby-Dick. The description tions, English index. £15, cloth; ISBN 0-85177- of life in Melvilles farmhouse in the Berkshires, 70027. Canadian distributor, Vanwell Publishing, the influence of his reading, of his literary friends St. Catharines, ON. such as Evert Duyckinck, and of Nathaniel Hawthornes presence in the area, all contribute to an This book will appeal primarily to readers inter- understanding of Melville during this most impor2 ested in detailed information on the various com2 tant period. Parkers aim to show Melville im- ponents used in the construction of nineteenth- mersed in family life, surrounded by mother, four century ships of both wood and iron. The book sisters, wife and child, counters earlier depictions comprises a list of terms that cover hull parts, of the tormented loner. This domestic setting for engines, anchors, and related equipment, masts Moby-Dick's composition gives the biography and spars, rigging, sail, tackle, blocks, ropes, some much needed humour, as well. It is strange knots, bends and splices. The terms are presented to think that the direction of the novel might have in English, French and German, arranged in depended upon Melville giving up the reins of columns. Over eighty illustrations interspersed Charlie, the family horse, so that his mother and throughout the pages show different steamers and sisters could transport themselves to town. sailing ship rigs, parts of both wooden and iron Parkers approach does have its pitfalls. For ships, machinery and equipment, sails, rigging all the evidence and careful documentation, he and tackle. The book concludes with tables of cannot seem to reveal the intricacies of Melvilles equivalents in Imperial and Metric for measure- mind engaged in producing one of the great ments of length as well as details of weight for books. Fifty years ago, Charles Olsons Call Me such items as iron plate, angle iron, flat- and Ishmael presented a mixture of biography and square-rolled iron, copper, brass and lead compo2 textual sleuthing to attribute Melvilles rediscov2 nents, both manila and wire rigging, and steel Book Reviews 77

hawsers. A trilingual index follows. H. Abrahamson, P. Lindquist, Y. Lindström , L. Heinrich Paasch was well qualified to write Stenholm, B. Swahn. Aktuellt 1997 Marin Mu- this type of book. He was at sea at age ten; five seum. Karlskrona: Marin Museum, 1997. 192 pp., years later he joined the German navy, and subse- illustrations, plans. [No price given], hardbound; quently served in the Danish navy as well. He ISBN 1103 5595. broadened his experience by serving in German, Dutch and American merchant ships, rose to com- In June 1997, the Naval Museum's fine new mand vessels, and finally settled in Antwerp facilities at Karlskrona were officially opened by where he supervised the construction and repair the King of Sweden. Curiously, no mention is of ships, acting as a surveyor for Lloyd's register. made of this event in the museum's 1997 year- Recognizing the need for this type of book, he book, though it contains a wealth of information financed its publication himself. about the past years' other activities. Readers familiar with Paasch's works should The museum's director, P.L. Lindquist, and be alert to the fact that this is the first edition of president of the Friends of the Naval Museum H. From Keel to Truck! Why Conway chose to Hedman explain in the foreword that the new change the title is not explained. Under its origi- buildings took form following visits to Chatham nal title, a second edition was published in 1894, and Rochefort (France) dockyards. Two articles a third in 1901, and a fourth in 1924. By virtue of include a history of the museum since its found- its trilingual approach, the amount of information ing in 1752 and descriptions of the new buildings. was effectively limited to a third of what could The architect, B. Malmström , also painted the have been included in a unilingual version. While picture of the new museum on the cover. the terms themselves are shown, together with the A variety of articles follow, including one on equivalent in the other languages, most lack a the possible origins of the Spanish guns (one description. Some terms are self evident, but dating from 1514) found in the Great Crowns many will force less knowledgeable readers to wreck off the island of ()land,. There is an activ- consult a dictionary or other reference. It was for ity report on the Carlskrona boat squadron. This this reason that Paasch was approached by some consists of eleven lateen-rigged ships' boats, built British masters and shipowners, following the between 1830 and 1882 and now owned by the publication of this first edition, to prepare an museum; they are maintained in Chapman's old English2only edition, thereby creating enough boathouse, and are sailed on Wednesdays and space to allow the terms to be described briefly Sundays. Four retired naval vessels are also kept and clearly where necessary. The result was the alongside the museum. The ship-rigged training Illustrated Marine Encyclopedia (1890; reprinted ship Jarramas, built of steel in 1900, retired in in 1977 by Angus Books), which increased the 1946 upon commissioning of the schooners text by a hundred pages and provided further Gladan and Falken. The steam turbine mine- illustrations which better illustrated the parts of sweeper, Bremön, was one of a series of fourteen wooden ships, illustrations which would be built during World War II. Their purposes also widely reproduced by authors right up to the included neutrality patrols and escort work. present day. The third edition reverted to the Bremön was retired from active service in 1966, trilingual approach, though the extra illustrations and then served as a training vessel for engine were carried forward. This next edition was more room personnel until the end of steam in the than double the size of the original edition. Royal Swedish Navy. Two torpedo boats are part This latest reprinting is sufficiently faithful of the collection as well; both have been refitted to the original that it does not include the illustra- and are in running order. T38, displacement 40 tions added in the later editions. Nevertheless, it tons, is one of a series of steel torpedo boats built certainly deserves a place in any ship library by Kockums in 1950. Three 1500 hp Isotta en- which lacks a Paasch publication. gines gave the vessel at full load a maximum speed of fifty knots. Although most of this class Eric D. Lawson of twenty-five had a se rvice life of about twenty Bowen Island, British Columbia years, T38, for some reason, was laid up in Karlskrona in 1956. Spica, 210 tons and armed 78 The Northern Mariner with one 57mm gun and six torpedoes, was the books dust jacket states that Paines encyclope- first in a series of twelve torpedo boats propelled dia lists over a thousand historic ships. The first by three 4250 hp Bristol Proteus gas turbines entry is the Cheops ship of Egypt dated 2500 built in 1966. Spica was in service for over BCE and the last entries are from 1995. One twenty-two years. HM the King served as a senses that the author was adding to his material midshipman in this ship in 1967. As well, the even after the document was at the publishers. collection includes the hulls of the Navys first The ships range from the very obvious and submarine Hajen (Shark), built in 1900 and now well known to obscure, almost unknown vessels preserved ashore, and that of a customs cruiser. and this obscurity is indicative of the authors The museum has sponsored two full-scale thoroughness in compiling his list. Given that we replica projects since the 1995 completion of all have our favourite ships, but understanding Aluett based on the 1200 AD Kalmar wreck. The that producing an encyclopedia is not an arbitrary first is the Aurora, a twenty-six-foot steam pin- exercise, it would be difficult to find anyone that nace of the type built in the old Stockholm naval was dissatisfied with this works contents or felt yard in 1884. The original draughts were avail- that an important vessel had been overlooked. able, and the compound engine and boiler were As is expected of an encyclopedia, a com- found in the dockyard. The second project is the pendium is given for each ship listed. This in- construction of the postal vessel Hjörten (Deer), cludes the statistics for each vessel (dimensions, designed by the English shipwright Francis John tonnage and so forth) as well as a concise history Sheldon in 1690 for se rvice between Southern of the ship from conception to fate. These entries Sweden and the continent; the vessels had a vary in length depending on the significance of length of fifty feet and a beam of 13.5 feet. It is the ship, and while they cannot provide a compre- intended to sail the ship between Karlskrona and hensive study of a given ship, they are the perfect the continent in 1999. The yearbook contains an starting point for anyone wishing to do further account of sailing Aluett in the wake of King research. Enhancing this role is a note at the end Valdemar IIs 1219 expedition to Tallin, Estonia. of each compendium, recommending further Regrettably there are no summaries in Eng- reading; these are reflected in the bibliography. lish, but those who are able to read any of the One might anticipate a certain dryness in three Scandinavian languages will enjoy this very reading an encyclopedia but this is not the case interesting yearbook. with Paine. When first given this book to review, I assumed that, as a reference work, a light Dan G. Harris browse over its salient features would suffice to Nepean, Ontario form an opinion of the work. However, as ships are the pawns of maritime history and maritime Lincoln P. Paine. Ships of the World: An Histori- and world history are inseparable, the author has cal Encyclopedia. Boston New York: presented us, albeit inadvertently, with a brief Houghton Mifflin Company, 1997. xvi + 680 pp., synopsis of world history. Consequently, when I photographs, illustrations, colour plates, maps, began to look at the text I found it so infectious chronologies, glossary, bibliography, index. US that my light browse escalated to the point where $65, cloth; ISBN 0-395-71556-3. Canadian I have read almost all of it. Further, even before I distributor, Thomas Allen Son, Markham, ON. began this review, I had two opportunities to employ this book for reference. The notion of producing encyclopedias and dic- The book itself has been handsomely pro- tionaries of ships is not a new one. Biographical duced; representative photos and useful maps listings of historic ships have been with us for have been included and there is a fine selection of some time and have gained such popularity and colour plates. A thoughtful inclusion is the chro- importance that many of them specialize and deal nologies, of which there are five — "Archaeologi- with limited subjects, such as the ships of a spe- cal Sites," "Maritime and Related Technology," cific country , ships of a defined era, or museum "Voyages of Discovery," "Naval History" (which ships and shipwrecks. The strength of this work is divided in turn into ten sections) and "Ship- is in its universality and in its currentness; the wrecks, Highjackings and Other Disasters." All Book Reviews 79

are particularly useful, for they can easily be fishing and small trading vessels. A brief descrip2 examined at a glance. tion of some Danish and English vessels leads Encyclopedias by their nature quickly be- into a detailed an d well-illustrated account of the come outdated and this is especially true today, in history, construction and rigging of Netherlands a world of instantaneous global communications vessels. The kuff follows and occupies the greater and electronic information banking. Paine's work, part of the book with over fifty pages of history however, will undoubtedly enjoy extended lon- and description, again comprehensively illus- gevity not only for its present merit, but also trated. This was a vessel type which developed in because future editions can easily be updated. the eighteenth century and continued to evolve in As a general reference work it is unlikely the nineteenth. Kuffs sailed to the Iberian penin2 that this volume will find its way into libraries of sula and the Mediterranean as well as extensively every student of maritime history. Let us there- in the Baltic and the No rth Seas. Double ended, fore hope that public libraries will be astute with little rise of floor, relatively deep and narrow enough to obtain a copy. This is a very ambitious (though small kuffs carried leeboards), they were work and while ambition is to be applauded at all in English language terms ketch or schooner times, it is to be given a standing ovation when it rigged, usually with square topsails. There is one is as successful as this one is. Paine and his colla- drawing of a brigantine-rigged German kuff. borators have produced an encyclopedia that Again the type is associated particularly with the epitomizes the definition of the word. Netherlands, especially with the po rt of Groningen where it evolved in several forms. John McKay There are detailed descriptions of structure, com2 Langley, British Columbia prehensive lines drawings, and numerous photo- graphs of contemporary models. Horst Menzel. Smakken Kuffen, Galioten. Drei This reviewer has a particular interest in the fast vergessene Schiffstypen des 18. und 19. development of vessel structures in the medieval Jahrhunderts. Hamburg: Ernst Kabel Verlag for period. The illustrations and descriptions of the the Deutsches Schiffahrtsmuseum, 1997. 144 pp., structures of underwater finds dating from the illustrations and photographs (b+w, colour), mid-nineteenth century, together with the draw2 suggested readings, index. DM 68, cloth; ISBN 3- ings of the model of the kuff Groningen, dating 8225-0413-0. from the same period show a system of hull planking closely similar to that believed to have This is a very nicely published book on an inter- been used in the medieval hulc. There is, perhaps, esting and important subject which has not had a survival here comprising evidence which could much published treatment in the past. The text is be followed up with advantage. in German without English language summaries The final section deals with the galiot. Lat- or captions but the book is well illustrated an d the terly a ketch-rigged vessel of seventy feet or so, theme of the book is easy to follow. in the eighteenth century the term was used for The types of small merchant and fishing full-rigged ships designated by their hull form sailing vessels described — the smack, the kuff rather than their rig. In later galiots one can per- and the galiot — were particularly associated with haps see the origin of the hull form of the late the Netherlands and the German No rth Sea and nineteenth- and twentieth-century German/ the Baltic coasts. They persisted from the seven- Danish/southern Swedish galeas, familiar as the teenth century until well into the twentieth. inaccurately named "Baltic trader," still seen in Indeed in motorised steel versions they played a European waters today as yachts, cruise and valuable role in the rebuilding of western Euro- training vessels. pean trade after World War I. The book concludes with some detail of The book is divided into three sections — not small vessels' rigging, again with excellent chapters in the normal sense. Each deals compre- drawings. hensively with the history of one of the three types. The first section concerns the smack, a Basil Greenhill term used internationally in Europe for sailing Saltash, Cornwall 80 The Northern Mariner

Julian Mannering (ed.); Basil Greenhill (Consult- there were two distinct types, both engaged, at ing ed.). The Chatham Directory of Inshore least in the latter years, "seeking" ships often well Craft: Traditional Working Vessels of the British to the west of Lundy Island. These were the well Isles. London: Chatham Publishing, 1997. 239 known gaff cutters and the Swansea schooners, pp., illustrations, photographs, lines drawings, similar in dimensions but having a totally differ- maps, sources, index. £35, US $60, cloth; ISBN ent rig. The text points out that in this case, the 1-86176-029-9. Distributed in the United States cutter, because of the danger to her rig coming by Mystic Seaport Museum, Mystic, CT. alongside in a seaway, transferred the pilot using a punt while the schooner, not having any stand2 The Chatham Directory of Inshore Craft; Tradi2 ing rigging, shorter masts, and well equipped with tional Working Vessels of the British Isles fulfils fenders could get directly alongside. Furthermore, its title and more, for it also includes craft that a close examination of the photographs can often worked inland from the coast and some where reveal information not contained in the caption employment took them well offshore. Written by and it would appear in this instance that these several contributors, each expe rt in their field, schooners had heavy bitts on each side of the this book is by far the most complete reference foremast just inboard of the rail and that the work on this subject so far published. The area probable method would therefore be to sail in covered includes all of Ireland, but not the Chan2 close under the vessels lee and get a working line nel Islands, divided into regions starting with the aboard, which was then taken to the bitts, lower northwest coast of Scotland and working clock2 the canvas and, providing the ship still had way wise around the country . At the beginning of each on, sheer in alongside with the rudder. There is a region there is a description of the environment as reason for every part and piece of equipment in a it effected the working boats and of other contrib- working craft and this book, due to its scope and uting factors, such as historical and commercial purpose, does not have all the answers on ques- considerations. This is followed by a detailed tions relating to seamanship, or boat construction. description of each craft, as much as space al- Stability, particularly in the smaller pulling lows, which includes its function, historical and sailing boats and the need for load carrying or development, hull form, method of construction, speed are often conflicting requirements. Each of manner of working and rig, the text enlivened these craft was a compromise based on the final with anecdotes and well illustrated with many criteria of "fitness for purpose" and the plans, plans drawings and photographs. drawings and historic photographs complement A directory is only a guide and therefore the text and illustrate how this was achieved. does not cover every aspect, but for those who The index, as one would expect in a refer- wish to make a further study, the authors have ence work of this kind is extensive but confined included their sources for each craft in the text, a for the most part to names of places, people and complete list is also produced before the index. boats. There is no glossary of seamans terminol- Most of the sources referred to are already pub2 ogy, as it is assumed that the reader will have at lished works on one particular craft or class, least some knowledge of the subject. However, although the late Eric Mckees Working Boats of for anyone not familiar with the coastline, on Britain their Shape and Purpose is more compre- some of the maps, due to the close spacing of hensive and, as it goes into much greater detail on place names it is difficult to make out the actual the structure, shape and means of propulsion, location; a smaller type face would still be legible forms the ideal companion to this book. and avoid confusion. This book allows comparisons to be made of I am sure this book will be frequently taken craft working in the same type of environment down from the shelf, not just as a reference, but and employment but from different locations. In because it provides an absorbing and readable some cases they appear very similar in hull form study for anyone interested in the historic work- and rig, such as the beach boats of Sidmouth and ing craft of the British Isles. Beer and those further up Channel at Hastings, Eastbourne and Brighton. On the other hand if we Peter Allington look at the pilot vessels of the Bristol Channel, Cotehele Quay, Cornwall Book Reviews 81

Kenneth Solway. The Story of the Chestnut goods store in Fredericton in 1836, through 1897, Canoe: 150 Years of Canadian Canoe Building. when the first Chestnut canoe was built, until the Halifax: Nimbus Publishing, 1997. ix + 166 pp., last canoe left the factory in 1979. Like many illustrations, photographs, tables. $19.95, paper; business tales of the era, there was skulduggery ISBN 1-55109-221-2. afoot — a questionable patent on wood and can- vas construction techniques, workers stolen from In The Story of the Chestnut Canoe, Kenneth rival companies, secret deals and amalgamations, Solway offers not only a history of the Frederic- all of which add a little spice to a somewhat ton company which built these vessels but also a disorganized but nonetheless fascinating story. brief history of their evolution, the histories of Although Solways book contains much to rival companies and biographic notes on most of interest both the canoe enthusiast and the general the people who played a major part in the saga. reader, it is badly edited and very poorly orga- "The canoe is the defining icon of Canadian nized. In addition to misspelling of proper names heritage and the Chestnut Canoe Company — such as "Canard" liners and "Malicite" Indians, incorporated in 1907 in Fredericton, N.B. — was the main text is cluttered with tiny, barely deci- the crowning achievement among the many great pherable photographs, some out of sequence, plus canoe companies of Canada." This quotation from biographic notes, tables and other inse rts whose the back cover, a somewhat pretentious foreword proper place is in endnotes and appendices. Worst and some prefactorial fiction (the tale of how two of all, eighty-four wonderful pages of reproduc- teenage boys first came in contact with a canvas- tions from old canoe catalogues have been covered canoe), gets Solways history of Cana- squeezed into forty pages of book, overlapped dian canoe building off to a rather inauspicious and reduced in size to the point where, without start. As a result, it was a pleasant surprise to find magnification, their text is quite illegible. that the rest of the book contains some really interesting material. Robin H. Wyllie We find, for example, that the beautifully2 East LaHave, Nova Scotia finished wooden plank canoes of the Peterbor- ough area evolved from the native dugouts Timothy J. Kent. Birchbark Canoes of the Fur adopted by the settlers to meet their transpo rtation Trade, 2 vols. Ossineke, MI: Silver Fox Enter- needs. The more utilitarian canvas-covered ca- prises, 1997 [P.O. Box 176, 11504 U.S. 23 South, noes originated in Maine. There are, according to Ossineke, MI 49766, USA]. xi + 343 pp. (I), v + the author, hybrids, incorporating waterproof 326 pp. (II), figures, photographs, maps, sources. covering, like the birchbark canoe, with the US $49.50 ($46 $3.50 p+h), Cdn $71, paper; carefully fitted wooden planking of the Peterbor- ISBN 0-9857230-0-3. ough. The use of canvas also permitted the ves- sels to be built from the inside out — ribs, plank- There can be few more enduring historical associ- ing, canvas, over reusable wooden forms, a major ations than that between the birch bark canoe and advantage over the outside-in method of birch2 the No rth American fur trade. Images of stalwart bark construction. voyageurs paddling through the wilderness are a Solway offers a number of unsatisfactory staple of North American history, and many will theories about the origin of this method of manu- have heard of artists such as Frances Anne facture. However, had he looked into the matter Hopkins and her fur trade paintings — indeed, one a little further, he would have found reference to of them graces the cover of volume number one the moosehide-covered spring canoes used by the of Birchbark Canoes of the Fur Trade. For all of Maliseet. They were in use late into the nine- the acknowledged importance of fur trade canoes, teenth century and, but for the method of fitting however, considerably more historical a ttention and fastening their cedar strips, bear a strong has been devoted to the voyageurs, their routes resemblance to the later canvas-covered craft. and the circumstances of the trade than to the The story of the Chestnut Brothers, Harry watercraft in which this was all carried out. This and William, and their canoe company is traced two-volume study by Timothy J. Kent sets out to from the establishment of the familys general remedy that oversight. 82 The Northern Mariner

Kent's work is in a clear line of descent from researchers, and travel North America portraying previous scholars. The best-known modern a 1600s French fur trader and his woodland student of birchbarck canoes of No rth America Indian family. They have paddled thousands of was the Canadian Edwin Tappan Adney (1868- miles in a traditional 16-foot bark canoe, and 1950). He became interested in bark canoes at an have equipped themselves with authentic cloth- early age and carried out exhaustive research for ing, equipment, weapons and food. This hands-on the rest of his life, interviewing longtime employ2 experience lends veracity to his treatment of the ees of the Hudson's Bay Company, reading smaller details of canoe travel. For example, his manuscript accounts, examining photographs and discussion of the use of canoes as short-term finally making models of various types of bark shelters for sleeping was clearly written by some- canoes. This vast accumulation of research mate- one who has spent many nights under such cover. rial lay unpublished in manuscript until it was Kent's obvious passion for his topic is both collected, synthesized and expanded by Howard a strength and a weakness. His research is un2 Chapelle. This work resulted in the publication by questionably exhaustive and his work goes far the Smithsonian Institution of The Bark Canoes beyond that of other scholars in this field to make and Skin Boats of North America (1964). It a significant contribution. However these two quickly became the standard reference work on self-published volumes would have been made the subject. much stronger with the assistance of an objective The research of both Adney and Chapelle editor. There is a great deal of repetition and was based largely on every possible kind of overlap between chapters, and often four or five source but the canoes themselves. Indeed, examples are given where one would have suf- Chapelle concluded in The Bark Canoes and Skin ficed. A great deal of the material is undigested Boats of North America that it had to be so, for he quotations from primary sources, and Kent's and Adney believed that none of the original craft arguments would have been strengthened by more had been preserved in museum collections. How- analysis and synthesis. While he pays eloquent ever, four original bark canoes and four model tribute to the pioneering efforts of Adney and to bark canoes do still exist, and it is on these extant a lesser extent Chapelle, Kent is curiously silent artifacts, as well as a considerable amount of about the work of other scholars working in the archival information, that Kent has based his field. The bulk of the material in these volumes study. consists of his own observations or primary Birchbark Canoes of the Fur Trade is first source quotations, and yet the bibliography is full and foremost a work of material culture scholar2 of other writings about bark canoes. A more ship, founded on a detailed examination of arti- substantial historiographical consideration of facts. The first volume addresses the voyages and canoe research would have helped to situate routes, manufacture, origins, sizes, crews, car- Kent's work within bark canoe scholarship. goes, decoration, equipment, loading, propulsion These criticisms should not, however, detract and longevity of fur trade era birchbark canoes. much from what is a substantial accomplishment. Appendices explore French canoe builders in the This book and the primary source material it St. Lawrence Valley, the research of Edwin presents will be an invaluable resource for histori- Tappan Adney and the paintings of Frances Anne ans, students of material culture and watercraft, Hopkins. The second volume is divided into eight and living history re-enactors. Kent is cur rently at chapters, each a detailed record of one of the work on a similar book about dugout canoes. If extant canoes or canoe models. Each volume has these volumes are any indication, it should be a few colour plates and many more black and welcomed by those working in the field. It is truly white illustrations. Volume one also contains a refreshing to see such a study based as much on glossary of canoe terminology and an extensive original artifacts as on archival and textual re- bibliography. cords, for which Kent is to be congratulated. Kent writes with authority about his topic, and his academic and archival research is bol- John Summers stered by a considerable body of practical experi- Toronto, Ontario ence. He and his wife and son are living history Book Reviews 83

James P. Delgado (ed.). British Museum Encyclo- ical activities in specific countries or regions; paedia of Underwater and Maritime Archaeol- these often mention additional sites and projects ogy. London: British Museum Press and Yale: which may not have earned an entry for them- Yale University Press, 1997. 493 pp., illustra2 selves. The encyclopaedia also includes some tions, photographs (b+w, colour), glossary, index. shipwrecks such as the Nuestra Senora de Atocha £29.95, US $55, cloth; ISBN 0-7141-2129-0 and the Whydah Galley, excavated with salvage- (British Museum Press), 0-300-0742721 (Yale for-profit as the primary motivation. Entries for University Press). these sites are accompanied with an editor's note stating that inclusion reflects the popular a ttention The dust jacket of this publication claims that it these sites have received, but "does not sanction is the "first comprehensive reference book on the or condone this type of activity." discovery and recovery of the submerged past". Perhaps the most remarkable feature of the Perhaps a nod of acknowledgement is due, how- encyclopaedia is the extensive number of entries ever, to preceding effo rts that went a long way grouped under the following headings: legisla- down this road. Those published in English tion/legal issues; organizations/institutions/agen- include George Bass's A History of Seafaring cies; research themes/approaches; and technol- (1972), Keith Muckelroy's Archaeology Under- ogy/techniques. Such topics add immeasurably to water: An Atlas of the World's Submerged Sites the book's value as a reference tool for the stu- (1980), and Peter Throckmorton's The Sea Re- dent of underwater and maritime archaeology. members (1987). Granted, each of these earlier Including items on legislation and organizations works had some specific limitations or failings. may seem an invitation for the work to become They are all now out-of-date and out-of-print as dated almost upon publication, but the approach well. In following the encyclopaedic format here provides the reader with a dynamic sense of James Delgado naturally does not offer the the young discipline's evolving history and the smooth flow of text which Bass provided, his changing social environment it operates within. It illustrations are not designed for the coffee table is gratifying to see the inclusion of avocational as in Throckmorton, and for cartographic flour- groups, as well as it is to see their accomplish- ishes one still needs to refer to Muckelroy or ments in the field receive due attention. These elsewhere. But for thoroughness and pure wealth inclusions accurately reflect the increasingly of information Delgado's effo rt is without equal, mature contributions many of these organizations and the result justifies the publisher's claim. have made to the understanding and management Over five hundred entries by 150 contribu- of underwater cultural resources in recent years. tors are included in this encyclopaedia. As might Research themes range from the obvious to the be expected more than half the entries refer to surprising; headings such as epigraphy, filtering specific shipwreck sites. Chronologically, these processes, forminifera, quatemary studies and sites range from the mid-second millennium BC, land bridges, and ship traps entice the browser. with vessels such as the Ferriby boats found on While most entries under the heading technolo- the Humber River, or the Uluburun and Cape gies/techniques offer little new to the specialist, Gelidonya wrecks off the coast of Turkey, to the for the uninitiated, topics dealing with often high2 warships intentionally destroyed around Bikini tech options for remote sensing, surveying, and Atoll during atomic bomb tests in 1946. Ships site recording, may be of great interest. discovered in dry environments range from the The encyclopaedia's finding aids include a Khufu burial ships (2600 BC) to the Niantic, built subject list by topic, with sites referenced accord- in 1833, and recovered from landfill beneath the ing to type, period and country, as well as a streets of San Francisco. Maritime sites which are twelve-page index. Related topics are bold-faced not shipwrecks include harbours, isolated under2 in the text for handy cross-referencing. Illustra- water finds, canoe spills, graves and monuments. tions are good in quality and in proportion to the Submerged prehistoric sites garner fourteen text. All entries have short lists of "additional entries. Geographically, fifty-two countries have reading." These are not intended to be complete sites represented. There are also twenty-four bibliographies, but direct the reader to the most useful entries providing overviews of archaeolog- "recent and easily accessible works" for more 84 The Northern Mariner information. There is also a brief glossary of of the author, John Sherwood Illsley. This third nautical terms. volume in the International Maritime Archaeol- The critical reader may note more than a few ogy Series focuses on underwater archaeology, typographical errors and will certainly be able to dividing the subject into eight sub-headings. The identify sites and topics absent in this book. Most "related topics" refer to shipbuilding and naval obvious from a general stand-point, is a notice- architecture, artefacts, conservation, archaeologi2 able bias towards No rth American sites and cal sites, and miscellaneous. The data for these concerns. Only about one-third of the contributors latter categories is intended as a general guide are based outside of North America. Delgado, only and does not claim to be comprehensive. who is the Executive Director of the Vancouver The introduction is essential reading to Maritime Museum and who formerly worked with understand the "how" and "why" of this bibliogra- National Parks Service in Washington DC, read- phy. The principal criteria for an item's inclusion ily admits in his preface that the contents reflect is that it had been employed in a work related to the "North American genesis" of the work. He underwater archaeology, or seen to be potentially further acknowledges that more contributions useful in that context. The selection and organiza- need to come in from "Asia and ... those countries tion of headings and sub-headings is acknow- formerly behind the Iron Curtain," and welcomes ledged by Illsley as a list that may have been suggestions from readers for sites and topics different under the direction of another author, deserving inclusion for future editions. The but that such individualism is unavoidable. How- breadth and balance Delgado has achieved is ever, an explanation of the rationale behind his nevertheless commendable; further editions are selections would have been helpful, as well as the justified by this publication's merits rather than scope of his definition of the subject. its omissions. Some entries fall into more than one sub2 The reviewer is loathe to use the well-worn heading, but there are no more than four for each phrase "there is something here for everyone," but listing, and about one quarter of the total are in this case the expression is applicable. Anyone duplicates. Most of the titles were derived by interested in human activities on the sea will find combing IJNA periodical notes, articles and book this as absorbing to peruse as any encyclopaedia references, and other bibliographies. Therefore, can be. It is an excellent introductory text for the neither the sources cited nor the topics themselves student of underwater and maritime archaeology, have been systematically reviewed which makes while it remains a valuable basic reference for the the work as a whole seem slightly piecemeal and professional operating in a field where there is a almost arbitrary. It does however, provide a wide dearth of good comparative studies. I would par2 range of titles covering a gamut of publications in ticularly recommend it for maritime historians as many languages. Practical and efficient indices to an essential primer for a rapidly growing field of the authors and keywords complete the book, research that has much to offer to them, but is too although the same for the sources is missing. often ignored in their publications. Some indication of the accessibility of the entries could also have been added but may be beyond Charles Moore the expectations of a bibliography. Ottawa, Ontario The major design problem of An Indexed Bibliography is in the page composition, since its John Sherwood Illsley. An Indexed Bibliography original intended format was as an electronic of Underwater Archaeology and Related Topics. database. It resembles a computer print-out in Vol. 3 of "International Maritime Archaeology" which each entry is coupled with distracting series; Oswestry, Shropshire: Anthony Nelson, numbers, although the purpose they serve is to 1 996. 360 pp., indices. £25, paper; ISBN 0- correspond with the abovementioned indices. The 904614-57-3. Distributed in North America by small font is also necessary given that the cita- David Brown Books, Oakville, CT. tions number approximately twelve thousand. This book clearly shows the growing volume This work is the culmination of fifteen years of of research produced in the field and illuminates work by a team of compilers under the direction areas where there is a relative small body of Book Reviews 85 scholarship, such as fishing, small boats and whaling ship from Red Bay, clay pipes and boatbuilding (found under M aritime Ethnography ceramics. More generalist papers deal with sub- and Ship Types). North American sources are jects such as armaments that might be found on relatively scarce, but this bibliography can still wrecks, and identification of ships' departure serve as a solid basis for any researcher to begin points from artefact assemblages. I found the his or her study. With its exhaustive listing and latter a little unsatisfying, as in this format there careful organization, An Indexed Bibliography of is not the space to develop the themes to useful Underwater Archaeology and Related Topics will levels. prove to be an essential reference tool for both the One paper I found particularly interesting: generalist and specialist. "Family life on board: the Dutch boat people between 1600 and 1900" by Van Holk. Here the Monica MacDonald author investigates the evidence for the presence Ottawa, Ontario of family groups on board ships, seeking items that may indicate gender or age from both written Mark Redknap (ed.). Artefacts from Wrecks: and archaeological evidence. On the other hand, Dated Assemblages from the Late Middle Ages to in "Rhenish stoneware from shipwrecks: the study the Industrial Revolution. Oxbow Monograph No. of ceramic function and life-span," Gaimster 84; Oxford: Oxbow Books, 1997. vi + 232 pp., draws erroneous conclusions from the Batavia figures, maps, tables, illustrations, photographs, (1629) material, having not read the excavation colour plates. US $68, library binding; ISBN 1- report and relying on an early illustrated cata2 900188-3922. Distributed in No rth America by logue. As a result he assumes a certain ceramic on the David Brown Book Company, Oakville, CA. the wreck, with a sprig dated 1595 was an heir- loom, whereas the archaeological evidence sug- This book consists of nineteen papers delivered at gests that there were at least four identical items an international conference held at the National without base wear and thus more likely to be Museum of Wales, Cardiff in 1994. The papers trade items and the potters were re-using sprigs deal with the interpretation of artefacts from that were thirty-five years old. In addition he wreck sites, with the objective of highlighting the makes statements about the Vergulde Draeck importance of contemporary studies of artefacts material which are not even recorded in the from wrecks, focussing on the period of transition excavation repo rt stating, for example, that mer- in Europe (c. 1485 to 1785). Overall, the collec- cury was found on the site when it was not, and tion is very interesting while the hardbound book that the bartmann jugs were used to carry mer- is well presented, with a colour cover, colour cury. This was true on some VOC ships, but in plates and excellent black and white illustrations. this case the archaeological evidence indicated One wonders how Oxbow has been able to pro- that they were being taken to the Indies empty, duce such a reasonably priced book. The work is evidence which is confirmed from archival a credit to the editor and the organizers (who were sources. He goes on to state that a fatty substance the Nautical Archaeological Society). from a small jar was analysed, where no such The papers themselves cover a wide range of substance was found or analysed. subjects which are divided into four parts: artefact What a joy to at last see some of the products integration and potential; artefact groups from the of the Mary Rose in print. It is also interesting to Age of Discovery; an interdependence of disci- see both a more rigorous analysis of some of the plines; and shipwreck identification and social archaeology that has been conducted in the past structure. Some of the papers are extremely and also the development of the integration of interesting, and many are most welcome in the archaeology and the archival record. These as2 field of shipwreck archaeology. The papers are pects have been sadly lacking in the past. divided into those dealing with sites (Mary Rose, I found a lack of representation of terrestrial Machault, Kronan, the Cattewater Wreck, Duarte archaeology in the proceedings. There were no Point wreck, Zuiderzee wrecks and a wreck in reports of complementary evidence and surpris- Wales). Artefact studies included coinage from ingly, while the Netherlands was well represented wrecks, ingots, a study of shoes from the Basque in the shipwreck aspects, it would have been 86 The Northern Mariner

useful to have some comparative terrestrial re- than résumés prepared from speaking notes. Most ports from the archaeology conducted in the cities of the papers are brief and of a descriptive nature. in the Netherlands — Amsterdam and Ro tterdam A few, however, go beyond mere description of and similarly from the United Kingdom. Many of the vessels under study and make a positive the shipwreck reports refer to other shipwreck contribution to furthering the study of warships. archaeological sites and it was difficult to find a A strength of the volume is that the papers, reference to authors using evidence from terres- almost without exception, deal with real, and in trial excavations. Does this mean that the two most cases, extant vessels. fields are still so far apart? Following a short introduction and preface, the papers are arranged into three main sections — Jeremy Green Excavation and Interpretation; Ordnance; and Fremantle, Western Australia Construction, Reconstruction and Preservation. As might be expected, the first section is the Mensun Bound (ed.). The Archaeology of Ships longest, with thirteen of the two dozen papers. of War. Vol. 1 of"International Maritime Archae- This section is diverse, with survey and excava2 ology" series; Oswestry, Shropshire: Anthony tion reports on new sites as well as research Nelson, 1995. 192 pp., maps, figures, photo- updates on previously excavated sites. The papers graphs, index. £32, paper; ISBN 0-904614-52-2. are ordered chronologically although, due to a Distributed in North America by David Brown lack of thematic focus, this does not provide an Books, Oakville, CT. evolutionary perspective bearing on anything substantial. For those interested in Renaissance This new publication presents some of the papers naval architecture, the papers on Henry V's given at a 1992 conference entitled "The Archae- Grace Dieu (Hutchinson) and the Tudor warship ology of Ships of War" held at Greenwich. The Mary Rose (Rule and Dobbs) will be particularly title is somewhat misleading as only half of the intriguing. Hutchinson's paper describes the twenty-four papers deal specifically with the unique triple-thickness clinker planking on the archaeology of warships. The remainder cover Grace Dieu and how the composite strakes may other topics related to ships of war, principally have been built up. In the case of the Mary Rose, ordnance and restoration projects. This, however, recent research indicates no positive evidence of does not make these papers any less interesting. "dovetail tenons" joining the floors to the first The present volume has no particular thematic futtocks or even of fore2aft treenails to fasten the focus other than warships in general and tends to frame members together. The lack of these fea- touch on a range of themes. Chronologically, the tures may signal a different architectural tradition papers encompass the ancient world to the mod- distinct from sixteenth-century Iberian practices ern era with an emphasis on more recent history. where these features are common and diagnostic. Geographically, the focus is clearly European, An exemplary paper is John Broadwater's and more specifically the United Kingdom al- concerning an eighteenth-century British trans- though there are contributions bearing on the port, part of Cornwallis' fleet at Yorktown during Mediterranean, India, as well as North and South the American War of Independence. In it he America. The rest of the conference papers are to addresses aspects of the naval transport service be published in a forthcoming companion volume during this period and illustrates this with his entitled Excavating Ships of War. The editor and archaeological work on the collier brig Betsy publisher hope these will be the first contributions discussing its unusual construction features, to a new series of publications dedicated to provisioning, shipboard life and function at maritime archaeology. Yorktown. Other noteworthy contributions in2 As seems to be common among conference clude Martin's concise and competent discussion proceedings, there is significant variability and of a Cromwellian shipwreck from Scotland and uneven scholarship in the quality of the papers Guérout's more expansive and informative ac- presented. Predictably, some presentations show count, albeit in French, of work on the US Civil that the authors took great pains in preparing War vessel CSS Alabama discovered off Cher- superior works while others seem to be little more bourg. Book Reviews 87

The section on ordnance contains only three photos and drawings, both historical and modern, presentations. Of these, two deal with East India- which greatly enhances each presentation. If it men: one, a straightforward historical study of the can be judged by its inaugural issue, this new arming of ships for the English Comp any; and the series will be a welcome and worthwhile addition other, a somewhat disjointed case study of guns to the literature on maritime archaeology. from the Dutch East Indiaman Mauritius that goes on to present a precise, ordered and detailed R. James Ringer method of recording and describing cast iron and Ottawa, Ontario bronze artillery. The highlight of this section, however, is Robert Smith's paper on wrought2 Dennis L. Noble. Lighthouses and Keepers: The iron swivel guns from the fourteenth to sixteenth U.S. Lighthouse Service and Its Legacy. Anna- centuries. Here, in a clearly argued fashion, Smith polis: Naval Institute Press, 1997. xv + 244 pp., marshals archival sources and information from illustrations, photographs, maps, notes, bibliogra- dated artillery pieces, primarily from underwater phy, index. US $34.95, Cdn $48.95, cloth; ISBN sites, to make sense of the myriad of names for I-55750-638-8. Canadian distributor, Vanwell these guns and to produce a firm typology and Publishing, St. Catharines, ON. chronology. This is a stellar contribution to the understanding of the early history and develop- Dennis L. Noble, a retired US Coast Guardsman ment of these shipboard weapons. who holds a PhD in history, is the author of The final section of this volume contains a numerous books and articles dealing with mari- potpourri of articles ranging from aspects of ti me and military topics. Noble now turns his wooden ship construction, to restoration and attention to the lighthouses and other navigational reconstruction projects, to the pros and cons of aids of the United States that have benefitted preserving historical vessels. Of these, the most countless mariners over the last two centuries. satisfying are the papers dealing with restorations. Lighthouses and Keepers is an overview of A paper on the Victory by a former commanding a large, complex, and impo rtant subject. Noble officer of the vessel, outlining restoration effo rts acknowledges the cursory nature of his history on the vessel during the twentieth century, gives and identifies the need for more scholarly works an insightful look into the complexity and diffi- on the subject. Nevertheless, the author points out culty of the work involved in maintaining extant that Lighthouses and Keepers updates previous historical vessels. Equally interesting is an article general histories written by George R. Putnam in on the revolutionary, screw-propelled ironclad 1913 and F. Ross Holland, Jr. in 1972. He also HMS Warrior. While basically a description of notes that his book is designed to interest the the restoration process, the accompanying illus- large number of modern lighthouse buffs who are trations provide a good understanding of the fascinated by virtually all aspects of their subject. structure of this remarkable warship. After referring to the handful of lighthouses Obviously, this volume's main appeal will be erected in colonial America, Noble describes the to those readers involved in the field of maritime initiation of the federal navigational aids program archaeology, although it may also hold interest by the Treasury Department in 1789. In 1820, by for those attracted to history, as many of the which time the government operated more than contributions include sound historical accounts. fifty lighthouses, this program was placed under In fact, most individuals with an interest in things the supervision of Stephen Pleasonton, the Treas- nautical will find something appealing in this ury's fifth auditor, a responsibility he shouldered book, though the rather high price may be a for over thirty years. Noble asserts that this barrier to many. This is a well produced, tightly official impeded progress because of a lack of edited book, practically free of typographical technical knowledge and a consuming interest in errors and, for the benefit of those unfamiliar with economy. In Pleasonton's era, US lighthouse underwater archaeology or naval architecture, the equipment was inferior to European gear and writing is not overly technical. Unusual for these facilities often were operated by incompe- conference proceedings, this volume is also tent keepers. profusely illustrated with good quality plans, The Treasury Department's establishment in 88 The Northern Mariner

1852 of the US Lighthouse Board reflected a Keith Keller. Dangerous Waters: Wrecks and determination to correct a bad situation. Noble's Rescues off the BC Coast. Madeira Park, BC: discussion of the origins of the board is all too Harbour Publishing, 1997. 303 pp., maps, photo- brief. But its creation was presumably related to graphs, illustrations, index. $28.95, cloth; ISBN the major economic importance of the maritime 1-55017-168-2. industry in the antebellum United States. Since naval and army leaders held a majority of the British Columbia's coastal waters are among the board's seats, one wonders whether the critical most dangerous in the world. Tens of thousands need to find additional billets to absorb the sur- of commercial and pleasure vessels travel the plus of military officers available in the 1850s Inside Passage and open Pacific each year and had something to do with this initiative. Finally, while improved safety procedures and electronic the appointment of two leading scientists navigational aids have made travel safer, acci- (Alexander Bache and Joseph Henry) suggests dents still happen regularly. In Dangerous Wa2 that the growing role of science within the US ters, Keith Keller chronicles shipwreck and government may help to explain the origins of the survival in twenty-one accounts of marine inci- Lighthouse Board. dents. What happens "When misfortune separates Whatever interpretations surround the estab- us from the little islands we call boats" [10] is the lishment of the board, Noble notes that it revolu- issue Keller explores through the stories of the tionized the effectiveness of US lighthouses. people involved in dramatic wrecks and rescues. Perhaps the most impo rtant advance was the In two sections the book deals with incidents overdue adoption of the superior lenses devel2 on the south and north coasts of British Colum2 oped by the French engineer Augustin-Jean bia; four harrowing accounts relate to the same Fresnel in the 1820s. The competence of light- particularly violent storm in 1985. The broad house keepers also improved significantly after variety of incidents involve a cross section of the 1852, despite the fact that these individuals were people who work and live on the coast — com- political appointees until 1896. In the twentieth mercial fishermen, SAR (Search and Rescue) century, the Bureau of Lighthouses replaced the Techs, Coast Guard captains, rescue helicopter Lighthouse Board. But Noble claims that US aids pilots, lightkeepers, pleasure boaters, kayakers, to navigation continued to be highly effective. divers and loggers. The sources are equally broad, The book also summarizes institutional ranging from official incident repo rts and articles developments after 1939, at which point the in newspapers and marine magazines, to dockside lighthouse service was absorbed into the Coast conversations with fishermen. It is quickly appar- Guard. In recent decades, unmanned facilities ent that the most important source is the words of replaced most keeper-maintained lighthouses and the people involved: the fishermen forced to lightships. The author also recounts the develop- abandon sinking vessels, the SAR Techs dangling ment of GPS and other electronic locational from rescue helicopters, the lightkeepers raising systems that reduced but by no means eliminated the alarm from the shore. the need for navigational aids. The remainder of Dangerous Waters is as much an exploration the book presents capsule histories of seven of people coping with crises as it is a narrative of representative lighthouses and vigne ttes of some capsized boats and heroic rescues. Through the of their colorful keepers, retells a few lighthouse stories of the survivors, Keller examines how ghost stories, and provides useful overall discus- people react when suddenly thrust into an envi- sions of lightships, tenders, and buoys. ronment where they do not belong: water. The Lighthouses and Keepers may interest gen- stories reveal the instinct for survival that exists eral readers, but it is light and unsophisticated in life-threatening situations and that assistance history. As Dennis Noble obse rves, we badly comes not only from trained professionals but need more rigorous accounts of the history of the from fellow mariners determined to save their US government's navigational aid program. comrades at great personal risk: "When the worst happens, people who can help do help." [10] Dean C. Allard Keller presents dramatic portraits of marine Arlington, Virginia incidents and rescues, depicting emotions from Book Reviews 89 the shock of sinking to the elation of rescue to have been. coping with the deaths of crew members and The idea was that Marie Coffey and photo- friends. There are also elements of humour in the grapher-husband Dag Goering would accompany middle of desperate situations. In "Three Men On the Farrells on a three-month cruise, documenting a Raft," the crew of the sunken tug Kitmano has the occasion in words and photographs. The just abandoned ship; one crew member says to Farrells would be on their junk-rigged boat China the skipper, "I've only been working for you for Cloud, while Coffey and Goering followed along 12 hours and I'm already floating around in a raft. in Luna Moth — an open dory. The result is a I think I quit." [ 107] Then there are the horrifying magnificent production job, with Goering's moments at Cape Beale when assistant light- photographs beautifully presented, the pages laid keeper Mike Slater hears the cries of shipwrecked out with generous white space, and an a ttractive Rusty Waters who clings to wave2washed rocks. typography — a coffee-table book par excellence. Waters' body was never recovered. Some scenar- Yet, despite the publisher's professionalism and ios almost defy description and comprehension; the charm of accompanying the Farrells on a the crash of the rescue helicopter attempting to "nostalgic voyage," the book fails to satisfy. save the crew of the seiner Bruce I at Cape Beale, Throughout the voyage the China Cloud persis- or the plummet of a SAR Tech into m assive seas tently gets far ahead of Luna Moth; similarly, when his line from the helicopter is severed. Coffey's diary of the voyage cannot keep up with Combining individual accounts into narrative the anarchist essence of the Farrell lifestyle. has challenged the author to resolve differences in The entire voyage occurred within the Strait witness stories and to objectively portray the of Georgia, in areas visited by hordes of recre- incidents. Keller carefully links each account with ational and commercial boaters. Coffey tries to information providing context and continuity. breathe high adventure into routine passages Although some of the rescue scenarios are very through, for example, Nanaimo Harbour and detailed and may confuse the reader with the False Narrows. What lies ahead is presaged as sheer volume of information about sea conditions, China Cloud and Luna Moth (trailing a kayak) weather and equipment on the vessels, the overall leave Nanaimo Harbour. Still within sight of impact of the stories is powerful and moving. cappuccino stores and the local gas station, Wrecks and Rescues is a testament to the Coffey reports: "After wrestling with the kayak determination of survivors and rescuers alike. for several minutes, I end up flat on my back like These events transformed their lives — some a helpless insect, with the kayak on top of me and returned to sea, some could not face work on the waves rushing by only inches from my face." water again. Keller shows great sensitivity to The voyeurism of the book, without analysis those involved in wrecks and rescues and pro- of the more profound currents that ruled the vides readers with a unique insight into life at sea Farrells' lives, also becomes an irritant. The and the will to su rvive against the odds. Farrells were unquestionably coastal characters (other books have been written about them) but Chris Mills the deeper aspects of their story remain untold. Ketch Harbour, Nova Scotia Sailing Back in Time is a lush coffee-table book and it presents a romantic view of the BC Maria Coffey; Photographs by Dag Goering. landscape. But the essence of the Farrells' — their Sailing Back in Time: A Nostalgic Voyage on anti-consumerist lifestyle, the functional simpli2 Canada's West Coast. Vancouver & Toronto: city of their designs, their attitude to mind and Whitecap Books, 1996. x + 158 pp., photographs body — remains hidden. Meanwhile, the Luna (b+w, colour), map, figures, index. Cdn $39.95, Moth (known locally as the Algeria Shoals) lies US $34.95, cloth; ISBN 1-55110-487-3. beached at Ruxton Island where another island character has made repairs. This book is a tribute to Allen and Sharie Farrell After years of escaping "civilization" the — pioneer British Columbia boat builders, sailors, Farrells played the ultimate joke on Coffey and organic intellectuals and advocates of a simple her husband. (who spent much of the voyage life at sea. The book is not the success it might fixing the recalcitrant mast in Luna Moth); China 90 The Northern Mariner

Cloud and the Farrells simply sailed away, the result of long, painstaking intelligence work escaping both pen and lens. Whilst lavish, this or of blunders by the drug importers. One won- book does little to expose the charm, uniqueness ders if shifting the emphasis from obtaining and, most importantly, rebelliousness and convictions to active prevention by offshore air politicality of the Farrells. Not long after the book and sea patrols would not be more effective and was published Sharie Fa rrell passed away. Allen perhaps cheaper in the long run. The Coastal still lives aboard China Cloud in Pender Harbour. Watch program has led to some impo rtant inter- We can only hope that Sailing Back in Time did ceptions, yet fishermen will privately tell of not change their lives. obvious drug ships and transshipments to small craft going on undisturbed off the coast. Perhaps Roger Boshier a more active patrol policy could be effective. Vancouver, British Columbia The controversial question of legalizing some drugs is another theme of the book. Oickle Vernon Oickle. Busted: Nova Scotias War on presents arguments on both sides of the issue, but Drugs. Halifax: Nimbus Publishing, 1997. x + allows readers to form their own opinions. Law 213 pp., photographs, map. $16.95, paper; ISBN enforcement officers and social workers who see, 1-55109-227-1. every day, the plight of crack users, heroin ad- dicts and street people mainlining with infected Busted is Vernon Oickle's account of the thirty- needles oppose legalization of any drugs that are two major drug busts made in Nova Scotia from now banned. Yet others want marijuana legalized 1975 to 1997 and of the effect of the drug traffic for medicinal use. It is certainly helpful to those on ordinary Nova Scotians, especially those in suffering from multiple-sclerosis and epilepsy and coastal communities. Oickle is a veteran of the it can prolong the life of AIDS patients. In the community newspaper industry and is currently terminal stages of agonizing diseases, heroin editor of the Bridgewater Bulletin. He has had would be more effective than morphine, yet the first-hand knowledge of several of the major drug law does not allow it. Middle class recreational seizures, especially those that were made in drug users do not agitate for legalization: this is a Lunenburg, Queens and Shelburne Counties, all measure of how easy it is to obtain drugs illegally favourite destinations for drug smugglers, and he and why, according to one drug dealer, the de- interviewed people on both sides of the law. To mand is so great and there is so much money demonstrate how ordinary people become in- involved. It is a war that will never be over and volved in drug trafficking, he invents the story of which neither side can win. Although the book a fictional small trucker who helps move one deals with events in Nova Scotia, the consider- shipment only to become more deeply involved. ations that are addressed apply anywhere. Vernon In the final chapter he describes the effect of the Oickle is to be congratulated for shedding some drug trade on individuals at all levels: distribu2 light on a pervasive social problem. tors, pushers and addicts. These characters may be composites and the fruit of numerous inter- C. Douglas Maginley views, but their stories ring true. Mahone Bay, Nova Scotia Readers will no doubt be interested in the nautical aspects of anti-drug operations: the Norman R. Okihiro. Mounties, Moose, and shadowing, interception and seizure of drug Moonshine: The Patterns and Context of Outport vessels at sea. Some interesting incidents are Crime. Toronto and Buffalo: University of To- described and photographs of several drug ships ronto Press, 1997. xxiv + 188 pp., photographs, appear among the illustrations, but the events at maps, tables, notes, bibliography, index. $45, sea are not covered in detail because the main cloth; ISBN 0280202089127. $19.95, paper; ISBN policing activity usually occurs ashore. The 0-8020-7874-5. police prefer to let the drugs be landed as their object is to make arrests, even if this means Mounties, Moose, and Moonshine is an risking some of the goods getting through. Al2 ethnographic accounting of criminal behaviour, most all of the big hauls by the police have been community response to criminality and law Book Reviews 91 enforcement in rural Newfoundland. Among the relationships with almost everybody else. The interesting findings is that there are crimes com- patterns of interaction between individuals in the mitted in outport areas that are considered crimi2 outports are in part based on the need to maintain nal offenses by the rules and regulations of the harmony and social order in the absence of regu- province and country but not necessarily by the lar law enforcement. community, and acts that violate local norms Okihiro says that the informal means of although not criminalized by the province. The social control that heavily proscribed aggression material reflects the development of outport was by all accounts highly effective because the criminal behaviour in relationship to settlement ultimate sanction was community ostracism. patterns, the historical, economic and political Outbursts of aggression were attributed to "cul- context of a province dependant on multi-species tural channelling of frustrations and/or hostilities, inshore fisheries for livelihood. or the breakdown of the informal social order of Okihiro identifies three different types of the outport." [19] crime. There are crimes that arise from economic This book makes a valuable contribution to subsistence behaviours, such as hunting, gather- the study of crime and to maritime studies. In the ing and domestic production; these crimes include first instance, Okihiro clearly addresses the big game poaching, illegal fishing and fishing difficulty of crime designations and enforcement policy enforcement, and the production and in rural areas and reveals the existing conflict consumption of moonshine. Indeed, "game hunt- between legal codes and local custom. The study ing with or without a licence and the distilling of of rural crime as a distinct entity has been over- liquor are seen as having a moral basis in eco- looked and this work with an apparent maritime nomic necessity." [9] Interpersonal crime is focus is unique. It challenges the assumptions categorized as assault, theft and domestic vio- about general patterns of crime and reveals the lence. Here, crime is personal in nature — perpe- complexity of culture, community and criminal2 trators and victims are known to each other and ity. On the one hand, the community presents the the fear of criminal attack by strangers is almost opportunity for these ty pes of crime and on the non-existent. The third type of crime, involving other protects those in the community from "exploitative" behaviour, arises from the continual prosecution. Okihiro's study clearly advances the state of impoverishment and economic vulnerabil2 call in Ian Taylor, Paul Walton and Jock Young, ity in most outport areas. Okihiro provides many The New Criminology: For A Social Theory of examples of crimes of the powerful in the out- Deviance (1973) for an adequate social theory of ports — mostly about relationships between deviance. Finally, and quite apart from its aca- fisher-people and the buyers or between fish plant demic merit, this book is written without jargon workers and the plant owners. In one fish plant it and will be accessible to a general readership. was said that "management was dictatorial and that working conditions in the fish plant were Anna Leslie geared to get the maximum productivity with Corner Brook, Newfoundland little consideration for the workers." [137] The development of outport culture is attrib2 Don Downer. Turbulent Tides: A Social History uted to the geographical location of each village, of Sandy Point. Portugal Cove, NF: ESP Press, the social isolation of the village and the inhabit- 1997. xvii + 361 pp., photographs, maps, illustra- ants and the limited contact with outside persons. tions, bibliography, index. $24.95, paper; ISBN Social isolation made community members 0-9681156-4-0. economically dependant on merchants in a cash- less mercantile system. Dependency on the mer2 In her brief but warm forward to this book, Lynn chant and inadequate payment for the salt fish led Verge recalls her family picnics at Sandy Point to a way of life based upon "individual resource- and expresses her gratitude to the author for fulness and resilience." Community members in creating a tangible record of the history of a the outports are mutually dependent on other community which was once the hub of economic villagers for "community se rv ice," are tied into life in Bay St. George. I , too, can recall a number extensive and overlapping kinship and friendship of expeditions: seas of purple irises, diving terns, 92 The Northern Mariner and newly hatched gulls not much more than his laudable objective is to infuse his story with balls of fluff nestled under protective vegetation life and humanity. The degree to which he suc- on the upper beach. Reading this book should ceeds must be evaluated by each reader, for it is encourage others to find their way across Flat Bay a matter of personal taste. to the old wharf, and it will certainly add interest The author interviewed more than forty and understanding to their subsequent explora- former residents of Sandy Point and uses their tions of Sandy Point. testimony to inform both his imaginative stories Author Don Downer uses two methods to tell and his factual analysis. If the average age of his his story. There are twelve chapters which cover informants was perhaps between sixty and sev- many of the topics which you would expect to enty, then they would have been children during find in any local history. For example, an over- the Great Depression and young people during view of the topography and ecology of the island World War II. I therefore find it surprising that is followed by an account of the demographic these two searing periods in world history receive history of the community and a description of the such cursory treatment. Moreover, one cannot booms and slumps which this resource-based help thinking that Downer allows himself to be economy experienced. Then the gradual growth lured into nostalgia when he reviews "Growing of services like churches and schools is explored. up in the 1940s and 1950s." There may have been Because the material is presented topically there no unemployment, [287] but there was underem- is a good deal of duplication, for major figures ployment, extreme poverty, malnutrition, and like the Reverend Thomas Sears or the Reverend inaccessible health care. The real contemporary Alexis Belanger contributed to the community in problems of widespread functional illiteracy, high many different ways. Interspersed with these drop2out rates and youth unemployment must chapters, and carefully identified by the use of surely have their roots in what Downer unabash- italicized typeface, are ten historically based edly describes as "the good old days." stories. For example, "On Official Business" I was disappointed too that no attempt was recounts the visit of the international commission- made to move from the particular to the general. ers in 1859 through the eyes of two fictional Why is the story of Sandy Point of particular characters. Similarly, a brief entry in Edward interest to those of us who were not raised there? Chappell's log of his 1813 voyage tells how his What does it tell use about the process of reloca- ship was met off Sandy Point by an Irishman in a tion? What light does this particular case throw canoe who offered to sell them fresh salmon. on contemporary outmigration? While the author Downer uses this fragment as a basis for "The conveys very well the political uncertainty under Genuine Paddy" in which he imaginatively recre- which permanent settlement evolved along The ates the kind of early life which might have led French Shore, this turmoil is hardly unique, since Seamus McFatridge to that meeting place. Some it is one of the attributes of most frontier commu- of these stories are based very closely on archival nities. It would be helpful if some of these con- documents, like the Grand Pond trek which textual links were explored. describes Jukes' expedition to Grand Lake in Apart from a magnificent cover featuring a 1839. Others are entirely fictional like "The painting by Lloyd Pretty based on a photograph Legacy of Billy" which explores the excitement of Sandy Point taken in the 1950s, I found the and romance which developed when ships of the illustrative material to be a mixed bag. There was Royal Navy visited the bay on a regular basis a lot of duplication. If half the photographs had during the 1930s. Still other stories, like "Last been culled out, there would have been room for Nail" and "At the Gap," are based on the memo- more full plate pictures and above all for more ries and recollections of some of the "Sandy careful explanations. The pictures were append2 Pointers" who the author interviewed. This tech- ages rather than an integrated pa rt of the text. For nique of overtly mixing what the historical record example, the oblique air photograph of the com- suggests did happen, with what might have munity on which the cover painting was based, happened, must be recognized as a brave innova2 could have been used to identify functional tion, for Downer risks being shunned by histori2 groupings of buildings and individual merchants' ans for mixing fact with fancy! But it is clear that premises. Similarly, enough pictures of individual Book Reviews 93 houses are presented to allow some comments on "merchantocracy" or of the Colonial Civil Estab- domestic architecture. The "ecological pictures"of lishment. This is, in fact, a book about the upper "Fir, Spruce and grassland `trees and beach crust and has very little to do with "the people of rocks"'are dull and dark. As a whole they suffer Newfoundland and Labrador." True, there are a from being taken at one season of the year. Few few exceptions like the Cantwells of Cape Spear birds or flowers were illustrated. The pictures of and the Youngs of Lobster Cove Head. And there the island simply do not convey the sense of are a few others, near-legendary larger2than-life beauty, complex variety, and ecological dyna- sealing captains and banking skippers who were mism which I remember. On the other hand, I strong enough to force their way through "the found the portraits and "snaps" collected from door called push" into the privileged circles of family albums had immense appeal. The picture wealth and power. of the sailor with a young woman [196] related If we examine the sub-title Early Homes and very closely to the story "The Legacy of Billy." Families of Newfoundland and Labrador, the "Sandy Point is clearly a treasure" concludes same argument applies pari passu. The book says the author, and in his book, he has polished it and almost nothing at all about early homes and held it up to the light for our enjoyment and ad- families. Most of the structures depicted in John miration. The march of time and the economy De Visser's superb photography are of middle- to have rendered all talk of restoring the community late nineteenth-century provenance; though very as a tourist attraction redundant. Yet the possibil- far removed from the palatial splendour of old ity of enhancing the capacity of the island to be a country stately homes, most represent the best sanctuary, by developing a partnership between that the more modest wealth of a desperately poor landowners and wildlife interests, seems attain2 colonial backwater could afford. The lighthouses able. Some modest changes in the timing and and churches that are well represented do, of intensity with which grazing is practised might be course, address in an indirect fashion, the lives of all that is required, especially if it were coupled the "people." But as to their workaday world, only with an educational programme in the local a single photograph shows a flake full of drying schools which pointed out the many values of the salted cod, and that has as a backdrop the compar2 "treasure" to which the young people are heirs. atively imposing business premises of the Crosbies. From another perspective, we might Simon M. Evans note that the section on "The Northern Peninsula," Calgary, Alberta for example, is totally committed to Sir Wilfred Grenfell who wasn't a Newfoundlander at all. By Margaret McBurney and Mary Byers; John De the same token, Labrador is represented by Visser (photo.). True Newfoundlanders: Early Moravian missionaries, Grenfell again, and John Homes and Families of Newfoundland and Lab2 Slade and his mercantile successors at Battle rador. Erin, ON: Boston Mills Press, 1997. 240 Harbour, where Robe rt Peary, who merits nearly pp., photographs (b+w, colour), illustrations, a full page of text, was once constrained to spend maps, select bibliography, index. Cdn $34.95, US ten days. A single concession to the homes and $29, cloth; ISBN 1-55046-199-0. families of the "people" of Labrador is the refer- ence to the Isaac Smith house recently rebuilt by True Newfoundlanders "is the compelling story of the Battle Harbour Historic Trust. the people of Newfoundland and Labrador," says Having said what the book is not, we can the dust jacket blurb. But it isn't so, particularly now look at what it is: a pictorial record of se- if we take "true Newfoundlanders" to be the type lected surviving elements of what has been called of those who "rant and...roar" in H.W. Newfoundland's built heritage. Almost all the LeMessurier's The Ryans and the Pitmans, from structures chosen for illustration are those that which, I assume, the title is taken. Indeed, the have been identified by the Newfoundland and likes of Bob Pitman, or Tim Brown, or Clara from Labrador Heritage Foundation as worthy of Brule, or John Coady's Kitty, or Biddy McGrath preservation. It is, perhaps, inevitable that those appear nowhere in this book. Those who do in should have been the well-constructed and, hence fact appear are, by and large, representative of the durable buildings that only those of comparative 94 The Northern Mariner wealth could afford. but also with scattered cod recipes, ranging from So long then as we remember that we are Medieval to modern, and literary quotations from reading about a very small subset of "true Cervantes, Dumas, Melville, Zola and others. "Newfoundlanders" and about the homes and These embellishments finally out-run the main families of a nineteenth-century élite group, we text and fill a forty-page appendix of their own. can read the book with great pleasure and profit. Before the decorations overwhelm the sub- For the text is well written, informative and stance, Kurlansky presents the glorious and sorry entertaining. The historical introduction is, per- tale of the Atlantic cod fisheries through the last force, highly generalized, and contains some 500 years, with some reference also to the previ- elements that might be described as popular ous half millennium. (He blithely declares that mythology. But that does not detract from the cod fishing was an Iron Age development and lively, and by and large, judicious selection of thus avoids probing its Neolithic variants.) historical material touching the lives of the build- Whether codfish really changed the world during ers. For the antiquarian, the tidbits of information this period, as implied by his subtitle, is question- included in the sidebars with which many pages able but they were certainly an impo rtant eco- are replete, are a gold mine of delight and might nomic and food resource for some No rth Atlantic prompt the reader to seek a copy of Mosdell's nations. In particular, they provided early New When was That? from which, I suspect, most England with the staple product on which its were culled. These, incidentally, do cast some commerce was based and thus under-wrote much light on the lives of the ordinary people whose of the revolution that produced the United States. building did not become heritage structures. The direct impact of the fisheries even reached John De Visser's photographs are superb, beyond the northern shores inhabited by cod and photographs from other collections, all since their preserved catch provided a primary properly credited, are judiciously chosen. There source of protein for the large slave populations is a useful select bibliography and a good index. on Caribbean islands, thus allowing both a planta2 Perhaps we should note that in respect of the tion economy that would otherwise have been colour photographs between pages 128 and 129, ecologically impossible and all the accompanying two captions are incorrect. The Roman Catholic horrors of the middle passage. Basilica in its St. John's setting is identified as St. Meanwhile, cod supported sufficient colour- Paul's Church, Trinity; while the last picture in ful events and inserted itself deeply enough into the group is identified as St. John's, which it Western cultures that a writer with Kurlansky's obviously is not. gifts could have filled several volumes with their story. Outside of scattered areas, from Nordmark Leslie Harris to New Bedford by way of Newfoundland, that St. John's, Newfoundland tale has been purged from our national myths in favour of the fur trade, cattle ranching and the Mark Kurlansky. Cod: A Biography of the Fish like. Even Canada's nautical self-image empha2 That Changed the World. Toronto: Alfred A. sizes privateers, deepwater sailing ships and Knopf, 1997. viii + 294 pp., illustrations, photo2 wartime corvettes, more than the cod fishermen graphs, maps, recipes, bibliography, index. Dis- who first opened the route from Europe to the tributed by Random House Canada, Toronto, ON. northern reaches of the New World. Kurlansky's $27.95, cloth; ISBN 0-676-97061-3. book should help to restore some balance. He does not, however, let the facts get in the Mark Kurlansky has written a book out of its way of a good story and his book is riddled with time, though one with a thoroughly modern and errors — too many to even summarize. They overly-simplistic message. In style and presenta- include an insistence that the B asques had a major tion, it resembles the work of a Victorian anti- fishery off Newfoundland before Cabot's voyage quarian — delightful to handle and entertaining to of 1497, for which there is not a shred of evi- browse through but lacking in substance once one dence. There is also a claim that the offshore dory probes deeper. It is highly decorated, not only fishery began two hundred years before its late with reproductions of woodcuts and engravings nineteenth2century appearance, while the inven- Book Reviews 95 tion of longlining is set several centuries after its and focussing on the specifically Canadian as- actual origin. Elsewhere, Kurlansky manages to pects of West Coast whaling history. Joan confuse the Newfoundland and Nova Scotian Goddard's account fills this gap nicely, and her fisheries of the eighteenth century in order to work is based on careful research in the available explain those colonies' refusal to join the New archives in this country and in Norway, conversa- Englanders in their revolt. (At the time, Nova tions with folk who were active in the local Scotia had an outgrowth of the Massachuse tts whaling industry, and personal exploration of the fishery, quite unlike Newfoundland's. It remained sites of the whaling stations on Vancouver Isl and. British primarily because of the power, including As the grand-daughter of William Rolls, who the financial power, of the naval base in Halifax, managed the Kyuquot whaling station in the early not because of cod.) He even manages the bizarre 1900s, the author comes by her interest in the statement that the early No rth Sea trawlers were subject honestly. This connection is reflected in longliners, though what he thinks those terms the many family photographs featured in the book mean is anyone's guess. Most of these historical which date back to that era. She points out that errors affect only details, of course, and the compared to the industrial scale of activities general impression that the average reader will elsewhere in the world, the catch in British retain may not be affected by them. However, Columbia was relatively insignificant. Nearly 1.4 where the book moves into current affairs and million whales were taken in the Antarctic be- modern policy choices, the mistakes are perhaps tween 1904 and 1978, while those caught in a more significant. There is utter confusion of half century of whaling in British Columbia Canadian fisheries management decisions in 1977 totalled only about 25,000. Whale stocks are now and 1983, errors in the dates of closures of the increasing in a satisfactory fashion, but unfortu- fisheries around Newfoundland and so on. The nately this coincides with rumblings of resump2 list is endless; or as long as Kurlansky's book. tion of hunting activity. Cod is an entertaining read but not one to be The catchers and equipment used until the taken seriously; and certainly not a reliable refer- mid-1960s by Canadian and Japanese whaling ence source. interests, who worked from the station at Coal Harbour on Vancouver Island, were of up2to-date Trevor Kenchington Norwegian design. However, as recently as 1942, Musquodoboit Harbour, Nova Scotia catcher boats of 1910 vintage, armed with black- powder muzzle-loading cannon, which would Joan Goddard. A Window on Whaling in British have been considered museum pieces in Norway, Columbia. Victoria: Jonah Publications, 1997 were still in use. There is a great photograph [50] [3974 Lexington Avenue, Victoria, B.C. V8N of William Schupp, president of the Consolidated 3Z6]. viii + 114 pp., maps, illustrations, photo- Whaling Company, grasping the stock of such a graphs, appendices (incl. sources and suggested whaling-cannon, and the cover features a splendid readings), index. Cdn $16.95, US $12.95, paper; painting by Victoria artist Harry Heine, showing ISBN 1-895332-14-1. one of these early catcher-boats hunting a whale. The recollections of folk like William A. Whale-watching is now one of the most popular Hagelund, author of Whalers No More (1987), tourist activities on the British Columbia coast, who served in such boats, offer a remarkable and generates more money than was ever realized window into the past and the whaling technology by harvesting whales in the same area. But what of almost a century ago. about the bad old days? Robert Lloyd Webb's On I loved this book. It deserves a place on the the Northwest: Commercial Whaling in the shelves of anyone remotely interested in Cana2 Pacific Northwest 1790-1967 (University of dian whaling, or the history of Canada's West British Columbia Press, 1988) is the definitive Coast. account of whaling activities on this side of the continent. What has been lacking up to now is John H. Harland something more modestly priced, appealing more Kelowna, British Columbia to the general reader rather than the academic, 96 The Northern Mariner

Andrew David, (Chief Ed.). The Charts & Coast2 the other hand, David's annotation of James al Views of Captain Cook's Voyages, Volume 3: King's running journal carefully notes the indige2 The Voyage of the Resolution and Discovery nous names of peoples encountered in the far 1776-1780 With a Descriptive Catalogue of all north Pacific; perhaps the book's introduction the known original surveys and coastal views and was written much earlier than the King material. the original engravings associated with them The King journal was included in memory of together with the running journal of James King Helen Wallis, who had been working on it at the 1779-80. London: The Hakluyt Society, in time of her recent death. It is easy to see the association with the Australian Academy of the i mportance of this document, which covers part Humanities, 1997. cxxxvi + 319 pp., illustrations, of the time of King's command of the Discovery charts, appendices, indices. £210.00, cloth; ISBN from Petropavlovsk to the Cape of Good Hope, 0-904180-5527. August 1779 to April 1780. David found the journal in the Hydrographie Department archives This is the third and final volume of Andrew in 1973, and he makes a splendid job of editing David's magisterial edition of Cook's charts and and illustrating it. King was interested in what views, and it continues the high standard of was happening ashore, as well as what happened scholarship and production set by the first two on board ship under his command, and through volumes. Beautifully crafted and presented, this him we have documentation of some extremely book is an invaluable resource and a work of art important aspects of north Pacific history, includ- in its own right — a tribute to its chief editor ing the decimation of Kamchatka's native popula- Andrew David, associate editors Rudiger Joppien tion by smallpox. and Bernard Smith, and to the Hakluyt Society . Knowing the threat that Russia posed to (Readers should however be warned that this hopes for the expansion of British trade in the volume costs nearly as much as the first two area, King also observed what he could of the volumes combined.) geography, natural history, and current Russian The third voyage was overshadowed by military strength in Kamchatka and tried (unsuc2 Cook's death at the hands of Hawai'ian islanders cessfully) to glean intelligence about the Russian in February 1779, but this did not diminish its imperial court from his interpreter at Petropav- cartographical significance and David gives us lovsk. Reaching Macao on 3 December, the offi- over two hundred of its charts and views, many of cers and crews received their first news of home them previously unpublished. The introduction in over three years: the American Revolution had sets each into the context of the voyage and mines followed almost on the heels of their departure, the voyage journals for details about the objec- and now Britain was at war with France and tives and conditions of the original surveys. Many Spain as well. "What a conflict of passions did of the ships' officers contributed to the draught- this mighty flood of new matter occasion," King ing of charts — each of these individuals is intro- declared, [297] as he and his fellow voyagers duced — while John Webber, William Bligh and rejoined the late eighteenth-century story of William Ellis drew the coastal views. European imperial rivalry. As we know, the north The introduction also covers every aspect of Pacific that he had just left would soon become the third voyage's objectives and scientific the focus of Anglo-Spanish conflict; one of achievements, with detailed discussion of Cook's King's last entries mentions the sea otter pelts emergence from semi-retirement, the contents of which Cook's officers had already discovered to his instructions, and the equipment and scientific be of considerable value in China. In this and significance of the voyage. This is David's fo rte; George Vancouver's subsequent survey voyage, his detailed, empirical research stands out bravely the Royal Navy would initiate a series of naviga2 amid a burgeoning literature on the racist, colo- tional and commercial relationships that would nialist subjectivities of Pacific exploration. Yet culminate in new colonies and new trade routes in one wonders whether it is wise to ignore alto2 the Pacific. gether the sensitivities that have developed in recent decades. It seems inexcusable today to Jane Samson write that Cook was killed by "the natives." On Edmonton, Alberta Book Reviews 97

Reinhard A. Krause. Zweihundert Tage im date, giving readers the opportunity to compare Packeis. Die authentischen Berichte der Hansa and contrast how they described their plight and Manner der deutschen Ostgrönland-Expedition daily struggles. Krause has resisted the temptation 1869 bis 1870. Hamburg: Ernst Kabel Verlag for to standardize their vocabulary, reminding us that the Deutsches Schiffahrtsmuseum, 1997. 348 pp., Germany was not yet a unified country . Their maps, illustrations (b+w, colour), photographs, contradictory attitude towards wildlife stands out. bibliography, indices. DM 78, cloth; ISBN 3- Although they hunted extensively, they also made 8225-0412-2. several efforts to tame some animals. Their arduous spring journey through Greenland's If you were asked to list the nations involved in frigid spring waters and desolate landscape is a the exploration of the Arctic, the chances are that highlight of the book. It is also a testament to your list would not include any of the German man's determination to surv ive in the face of states of the late nineteenth century. Yet, some extreme adversity. In the end, all of the men of intrepid German geographers, explorers, and the Hansa managed to survive their ordeal, and seamen did participate in several excursions to only one member of this hardy band suffered both polar regions. This volume details the expe- from an adverse psychological setback. riences of one particularly unfortunate group of Readers unfamiliar with the general history the Second German Northern Pol ar Expedition of of Polar explorations might want to consider 1869-70. It is a story for which the author is well reading the second part first. This provides not qualified to recount; in addition to being a scien2 only an excellent summary of the pre2history of tist and seaman, the author has participated in the Second Expedition, but also the general state three Antarctic expeditions. of European, and particularly German, knowledge The expedition consisted of two ships, the and theories on the nature of the Arctic region. Germania and the Hansa, neither of which was The various German Polar expeditions, financed destined to fare exceptionally well. The by both Austria2Hungary and Prussia, are well Germania group spent most of their voyage detailed. The text chronicles the struggle of the trapped in a sea of ice which defied all their organizers, led by August Petermann, of this efforts to regain the open sea. The men aboard the expedition to find financial, scientific, and politi- Hansa were far more unfortunate. Their ship ran cal support for this venture, as well as the scien2 aground and was ultimately destroyed on an ice tific theories that underlay it. floe, obliging the men to live for over two hun- At best, the German tradition in exploration dred days by their wits, their hunting skills, and is very weak. Certainly, the degree to which the by whatever they could salvage from their hapless fate of the Second Polar Expedition contributed to ship. this lack of exploratory zeal is definitely debat2 The volume is divided into two principal able. Nonetheless, Krause has illuminated a parts. The first focuses on the experiences of the much-ignored aspect of German and world his- Hansa group. In essence, it consists of a reprint- tory, and for this reason alone this work deserves ing of the diaries of three of its sailors. The a wide audience. second section provides a general overview of the history of German Polar expeditions and research. Peter K. H. Mispelkamp The text is complemented by a very large number Pointe Claire, QC of illustrations, contemporary maps and a few photographs. The majority of the illustrations Roland Huntford. Nansen: The Explorer as Hero. were drawn by Carl Koldewey, who participated London: Duckworth, 1997. xiv + 610 pp., b+w in this expedition aboard the Germania. The plates, maps, notes, bibliography, index. £25, remainder stem mostly from official sources, cloth; ISBN 0-71562274026. contemporary photographs and a few other writ- ten accounts of this expedition. Overall, the When FridtjofNansen (1861-1930) died, it was majority of the various illustrations are well said that while Norway had born him the world chosen and effectively highlight the text. had lost him. Since then, his fame has dwindled The diaries of the seamen are interwoven by outside his native land. It is hard to say whether 98 The Northern Mariner this has been caused by ethnocentricity or by the promising material as the lengthy period that fact that his career was not shadowed by contro- Nansen and Johansen spent in a hut measuring versy or tragedy. In any case, it is time for the ten by six an enthralling read. A master of narra- English-speaking world to give Nansen once tive pace and drive, Huntford also has a keen eye more the acclaim which is his due. This book, by and ear for details. Phrases such as "the homely the dean of polar historians, is the first full2length tramp of a sewing machine" [214] or "the shabby biography in English for many years. It is based snowbound sprawl of wooden houses liberally on previously unused sources, including ones in stocked with petty officials that was Tyumen" the Norwegian language. With it, Huntford [169] bring the past splendidly to life. completes the cycle of books which began with Huntford loves the way things — from ski Scott and Amundsen (1979) and continued with bindings to ships — are made and how they work. Shackleton (1985). The life of the man many His explanations are so vivid that even readers believe to be the most accomplished and innova- indifferent to technology share his enthusiasm. tive polar explorer of all is a fitting capstone to He is also shrewd about the ways men cope with the trilogy. each other. This shrewdness, presumably honed Nansen was a man of extraordinary gifts, by years of studying men in the extreme condi- both physical and intellectual. Astonishingly tions of polar travel, stands him in good stead good-looking as a young man, he was also a when he surveys Lenin's regime and the world, daring athlete, renowned in Norway for his apparently only slightly more savoury, of interna- exploits as a skiier. While in his twenties he tional good works. conducted the research into the central nervous Perhaps Huntford's greatest achievement is system which made him one of the fathers of his treatment of Nansen's personality. When in modern neurology. He defended his doctoral action — skiing, dancing, riding to hounds, play- thesis in April 1888 and, four days later, set off ing bridge, flirting — Nansen was a happy man. for the journey on skis across Greenland which He wrote that one day, mending clothes while made him famous for the rest of his life. The wintering in the hut with Johansen, he "discov2 Fram expedition (1893-1895), using a ship ered that it was possible to get 12 threads from a specially built for drifting in the ice, failed to piece of string, and I am as happy as a young reach the Pole. Yet Nansen and his companion, god..." [327] When he was not achieving he was Hjalmar Johansen, in the course of a separate desperately unhappy. He seems to have had no venture by skis, sled and kayak, set a new record close male friends. Although he loved the com2 of Furthest No rth by almost 150 miles. pany of women, as women loved his, he never A hard act to follow, one might think, but the enjoyed a satisfactory long-term relationship. He second half of Nansen's life was as remarkable as and his first wife seemed to have loved each other the first. He played an important role in the win- more when apart and writing letters than when ning of Norway's independence from the Swedish actually living in the same house. His second crown in 1905. He served as Norway's ambassa- marriage, to a woman with whom he had carried dor to Britain from 1906 to 1908. He returned to on an affair while his first wife was still alive, scientific endeavours with pioneering oceano- was miserable. As a father, he was a disaster. graphic research. He was also active in humani2 Huntford may love to explain things but he tarian work, for which the Nobel Peace Prize for knows better than to explain Nansen. Instead, his 1922 was awarded to him. He was involved both aim is to show us why Nansen is a modern hero. in famine relief and the settlement of displaced He employs the motif of the Faustian striver, the persons; his greatest achievement was the ex2 man blessed with great gifts and the determina- change of ethnic minorities between Greece and tion to achieve in ways commensurate with those Turkey under the 1923 Convention of Lausanne. gifts, who yet never feels that he has achieved Huntford brings to the telling of this life his enough. Nansen wanted the approval of only one considerable gifts as a writer. Even a pedestrian man — Fridtjof Nansen — and that he was never author can thrill us with polar tales full of horror going to get. It is legitimate to wonder if in the and pathos. Huntford's forte is competence in end he turned to the relief of human suffering polar exploration. He is able to make such un2 because it was a goal that could never be fully Book Reviews 99 achieved and thus could never disappoint. duces many early maps and illustrations, provid- Nansen's life sums up the modern sense of ing a comprehensive view of geographical know- despair about reconciling humanity's victories ledge of the Arctic in the period. Her treatment is and defeats. Since his death, science and technol- chronological, following a brief introduction to ogy have continued to advance, yet the problems Brunel himself and to late-medieval geography. he sought to solve — man-made famine, ethnic The discussion is lively, though sometimes conflict in the Balkans — are with us still. I heavily freighted with forgotten names, like a started to read this book expecting to learn more Russian novel with a cast of hundreds. The about a great polar explorer. By the time I was presentation of Arctic Routes is unusual in one done I realized that Nansen counts for far more respect, as the author interrupts her well-docu- than what he did in the world's high latitudes. mented exposition with brief fictional passages, re-imagining sixteenth-century conversations Anne Morton about the difficulties of exploration. Winnipeg, Manitoba How successful this unusual approach will be, depends on the reader. This middle-aged, Marijke Spies; Myra Heerspink Scholz (trans.). annales2style, modernist found the introduction Arctic Routes to Fabled Lands: Olivier Brunel of imagined material off-putting at first, or even and the Passage to China and Cathay in the alarming, with the inevitable whiff of fabricated Sixteenth Century. Amsterdam: Amsterdam evidence. In the end, though, the reader may University Press, 1997. 168 pp., illustrations, accept fictional dialogues as a poly-vocal presen- maps, sources. 159,50, US $37.50, paper; ISBN tation of forgotten debates that presents conflict- 90-53562263-X. Distributed in North America by ing points of view clearly. They do make Spies' University of Michigan Press, Ann Arbor, MI. Brunel more like, say, Steffler's Cartwright rather than, say, Quinn's Gilbert or Williamson's Cabot. Olivier Brunel is not a well-known name. This Marijke Spies is a professor of literature and her predecessor of William Barents in the search for book is, predictably, not a conventional history. a northeast passage was born near Brussels in the This is not a work of analysis, concerned to trace first half of the sixteenth century. Fie made a the interconnections of capitalism and the emerg- series of extended trips to northern Russia, ven- ing modern science of cartography. Nor is it even, turing far past the White Sea, reaching as far as really, an historical synthesis, attempting to trace Novaya Zemlya in 1585. The better-known Dutch a significant narrative. Arctic Routes is more a explorer Barents later thought of himself as very erudite gossip column, in which one discov- standing where Brunel once stood. Marijke Spies' ers, for example, that Richard Hakluyt was happy short book is designed not simply to bring to- to do contract research on arctic geography for gether what little we know of this early the Antwerp merchant De Moucheron. The merchant-explorer but also to re-create the approach is not to be despised, for it se rves well intellectual milieu of the low-country geographers the author's purpose of re-creating at least the in this period. Spies is concerned to locate Brunel illusion of intellectual context. within the world of the great cartographer In physical terms this is a well2produced Abraham Ortelius, or even within the cosmos of volume and a pleasure to hold, read and contem- the half-mad scholar Guillaume Postel, as well as plate. The bibliography is complete and the the intersecting commercial empires of the translation idiomatic, with the exception of the Stroganovs and the great Antwerp merchant Gillis term "gulf stream," which Myra Scholz misunder- Hooftman, who actually employed Brunel in his stands as a common rather than proper noun. trading ventures. There is no index, which makes this publication This discussion is based on published much less useful than it would otherwise be, sources, many of the period itself, but does not particularly given the attention paid figures little present fresh documentary evidence. This is, in known in the English2speaking world. other words, a product of diligent library research rather than a repo rt of crumbling documents Peter Pope newly retrieved from the archives. Spies repro- St. John's, Newfoundland 100 The Northern Mariner

John Logan Allen (ed.). North American Explora- contexts. The human imagination becomes little tion. Volume I: A New World Disclosed. Lincoln: more than the quest for mythical straits and University of Nebraska Press, 1997. xvii + 538 imaginary kingdoms. Contributors routinely fail pp., illustrations, maps, notes, selected bibliogra- to provide readers with a clear, early statement of phy, index. US $75, cloth; ISBN 0-8032-1015-9. their thesis. Argument, indeed, normally takes a back seat to description. New World Disclosed comprises the first segment One essay which does achieve the agenda of a three-volume overview of the European established by the editor is G.M. Lewis' detailed exploration of the North American continent and investigation of native North Americans' cosmo2 adjacent waters from prehistorical times to the logical and geographical beliefs and their influ2 end of the nineteenth century. Eight essays trace ence upon European exploration and knowledge. European awareness of, and involvement in, In an innovative and captivating study, Lewis North America from medieval folklore to the reveals the depth of the conceptual divide which early seventeenth century. Each is written by an separated indigenous and European views of phy- acknowledged expert in the area, evenly balanced sical geography. The twin themes are the inability between the disciplines of history and geography. of the European explorers to understand, and thus Most of the contributors assess developments effectively utilize, most of the information passed within a specific geographic region, ranging from on to them, and the likely reliance upon indige- David Beers Quinn's treatment of the Northwest nous sources during this early period for a sur- Passage in theory and practice, to Robert S. prising amount of cartographical information. Weddle's account of the Spanish penetration of The organization of the volume possesses the Caribbean and Central America. As is fitting both beneficial and negative consequences. In for this period and subject, half of the chapters are treating the theme of the assimilation of geo- devoted primarily to Spanish endeavours. graphical knowledge for all North America's east The editor conceived of this volume as a coast between 1524 and 1610 as a coherent unit, comprehensive investigation into the process of Karen Kupperman is able to provide a useful, European exploration, rather than simply another thoughtful portrayal of a large theme, and of the reiteration of the events of discovery. An empha- relationships which existed between geographical sis upon the role of human imagination should, it understanding and settlement pa tterns. Similarly, is stated, enable a reader to understand how Alan Macpherson and David Quinn aptly summa2 images and ideas shaped the course, and meaning, rize extensive information in their cautious stud2 of exploration. The terrae incognitae of North ies, respectively, of pre-Columbian discoveries America became "known" to Europe in a subjec- and the quest for a Northwest Passage. Repeti- tive fashion within a particular cultural context. tion, however, runs through this volume. Readers These are admirable goals. Unfortunately, in spite will find the same pen-nail sketches of individual of significant accomplishments, the volume as a explorers and voyages, and the same anecdotes, whole falls well short of the mark. Too fre- repeated two or three times. Surely, an astute quently, we are provided with the bald story of editor could have overseen the removal of some exploration. Contributors, confronted with the of this overlap (none of it consequential to the twin challenges of describing events within their arguments advanced). Certainly, a careful editor areas of study and accounting for them, have would have noticed when quotations purportedly tended to tell readers, once again, about the from the same published text are at variance, exploits of Ponce de León, Hernando de Sota, and could have gently informed a contributor when a their contemporaries. The stories are inherently superior text is used by a fellow author, or might interesting, and frequently are narrated expertly. have pointed out how one writer's balanced However, little space remains for analysis and assessment makes mincemeat out of another's insightful appraisal. Certainly, the objectives of confident, but rash, pronouncement. But then a the editor are rarely realized to their full. A pre- careful editor would also have ensured that the sentation focused upon the narration of events index is reliable (it is not). frequently leads to slap-dash examination of Individual factual errors, mostly on small complex political, economic, or intellectual points of little consequence, have been identified Book Reviews 101 in many chapters. The principal limitation, how- essays by Jacques Heers (1960), and Charles ever, rests in a perhaps excessive general reliance Verlinden (1953), were among the first to study upon standard texts and established views. When, the crucial role of Italian merchants in financing as in the case of W. Michael Mathes examination early voyages of discovery. of the early exploration of the Pacific coast, there " Motives," often summarized as "God, Gold, are eighty-two citations to his own work within and Glory," defines the theme of the next five the ninety-four endnotes, it is clear that the essay essays. P.E. Russell and Guy Beaujouan, both can not help but be a rehash of existing views and writing in 1960, brush aside the clouds of myth information. This is the most telling criticism of surrounding Prince Hen ry of Portugal. Beaujouan the volume: Lewis contribution excepted, A New demonstrates that the princes "book of secrets" World Disclosed tells an old story, in reasonably was a work of astrology, not astronomy as some familiar terms. In the hands of experts, this is claim, debunking the persistent notion that the often done admirably, and there is considerable early voyages were based on secret nautical value in having the overviews collected within information. Russell presents the prince as a the pages of one volume. We are not led far, practical man, concerned that Portugals African though, into a new world of the cultural values voyages show a profit but who also defined them and meaning of physical geography. as a chivalrous crusade against the Muslims. Without Prince Henrys religious vision, Portugal J.D. Alsop would not have pioneered the age of discovery. Canborough, Ontario C.F. Beckingham (1979) examines the spi- ritual motive driving expeditions to Africa in Felipe Fernandez-Armesto (ed.). The European search of the legendary Christian potentate known Opportunity. "An Expanding World," Vol. II; as Prester John, who was viewed in Portugal as a Aldershot. Hamps. and Brookfield, VT: Variorum potential ally against the Muslims. Similarly, Press, 1995. xxi + 360 pp., maps, tables, illustra2 Pauline Moffitt Watts moves away from the tions, index. US $107.95, cloth; ISBN 0-860782 notion of Columbus as a modern man of science 501-7. to rediscover the importance of Biblical prophesy and scripture in shaping his outlook. Her 1985 The fifteen previously published essays collected essay provides an impo rtant corrective to earlier here (twelve in English and three in French) form historiography, reminding readers of Columbus the second volume in a series edited by A.J. R. zeal to liberate the Holy Land from the Muslims Russell-Wood that addresses broad questions and to spread the knowledge of Christ to all related to European exploration and its aftermath. peoples. Andrew M. Watson (1967) argues that The first five selections ("Means") deal with the the differing ratios of gold to silver in the Chris- issue of how Europeans were able to conceive tian and Muslim worlds influenced flows of and carry out long2distance voyages into un- bullion back and forth across the cultural divide. known oceans. Thomas Goldstein (1965) argues A relative shortage of gold in fifteenth2century persuasively that Florentine scientists in the early Christian Europe provided a powerful incentive to fifteenth century first theorized that the southern seek out the gold-rich kingdoms of Africa. hemisphere was suitable for human habitation and The third group of essays, headed "Momen2 that the western oceans might logically lead to tum," explores various traditions in medieval Asia. Their insights were pa rt of the intellectual Europe that were later adapted to colonial experi- milieu that inspired later generations. Similarly, ence in the Americas. Charles Verlindens 1966 Paul Adam (1960) argues that the techniques essay traces the organization of frontier societies crucial to celestial navigation, which existed by and sugar plantation agriculture to the Crusader about 1480, evolved from centuries of mariners kingdoms of the eastern Mediterranean. Charles following the stars. Richard Ungers a rticle on Julian Bishkos 1958 conference paper examines Portuguese shipbuilding and African exploration medieval Castile, where borderlands disputed by (1987) is the only one in the collection to deal Christians and Muslims were exploited by herd- specifically with ships, featuring an excellent ing until more settled conditions made agriculture summary of the development of the caravel. The possible. In Ireland and Wales (Rees Davies, 102 The Northern Mariner

1992), other Europeans also developed a tradition Indian Ocean, such as the Portuguese, the Dutch, of frontier warfare alternating with truces and cul- the English, the French and the Danes. The tural accommodation. These traditions served volume is the tenth in the series dealing with Europeans well as they explored beyond the European impact on World History from 1450 to known world. So did the mapping of real (and 1800. The goal is to provide a reference book on imaginary) places. Felipe Fernández-Armesto's European presence beyond Europe in the early 1986 article examines cartographic evidence to modern period which also encapsulates changing argue that the Azores were discovered in the historiography on the subject. The focus then fourteenth century. Commercial documents, like shifts from dominance, conquest and control to maps, provide some of our only records about interaction with non-European communities and medieval long-distance trade. Robe rt S. Lopez's groups within a broader global perspective. 1943 article examines the most famous of these Trade between Europe and Asia dates to at accounts and suggests that Italian experience in least the beginning of the Christian era. There Asia was more extensive than these few docu- was nevertheless a structural change in the pattern ments indicate. of this trade after the entry of the Portuguese and Specialists in the Age of Discovery are other Europeans in the Indian Ocean network at already familiar with most, if not all, of these the end of the fifteenth century. It is now accepted venerable essays, whose elegant and path2break- that rather than a bilateral arrangement between ing arguments have now become commonplace. the countries of Europe and Asia, this trade The collection will be useful mainly for scholars should appropriately be termed Euro-Asian. in other fields and for libraries lacking a rich Traditional historiography had accepted that assortment of scholarly periodicals. The editor luxury cargoes comprising of textiles, spices or could have served those audiences better by tea were transported from Asia and sold in the providing a fuller historiographical context for the home ports of Europe. Recent research presents a essays. For example, what is the current state of far more complex picture. scholarship regarding Columbus' intellectual European trading companies found it neces- formation, discussed (with key differences) by sary to procure cargoes from one pa rt of Asia both Goldstein and Watts? Has Watson's call for with goods they had obtained in another, an serious scholarship in monetary history been obvious example being the shipment of Indian answered by subsequent decades of work on cloth to Indonesia to pay for spices. The Europe2 international bullion flows? How many of the ans were often unable to supply goods at compe2 topics covered by the essays were significantly titive prices in Asia, nor could they generate an advanced by works published for the 1992 adequately large demand for them. As a result, Columbian Quincentary? By providing answers they had to rely on precious metals for payment to these questions, the editor could have greatly of local commodities. This need for precious enhanced the value of this classic collection. metals, largely of American origin, to pay for the goods from Asia led to the development of an Carla Rahn Phillips organic and interactive relationship between the Minneapolis, Minnesota two ends of European expansion. This complexity of the trading network in the Om Prakash (ed.). European Commercial Expan- Indian Ocean is also reflected in the variety of sion in Early Modern Asia. "An Expanding watercraft used. These were of several kinds: World," Vol. X; Hamps. and Brookfield, VT: those built in Europe but kept in Asian waters; Variorum Press, 1997. xxvi + 330 pp., tables, those commissioned by Europeans and built at figures, illustrations, maps, index. US $112.95, Asian shipyards; or locally built vessels operated cloth; ISBN 0-86078-508-4. by private individuals. From the seventeenth century onwards, more than any other European This book is a collection of fifteen trend-setting power, it was the English who were more heavily papers published in different journals between involved in shipping. It was this vigorous 'private' 1960 to 1992. These encompass the commercial sector that gave the British a domin ant position in activities of the different European powers in the intra-Asian trade. Book Reviews 103

In contrast, large-scale official involvement nomic activity are somewhat under-represented in and the forging of commercial links marked the the present collection. activities of the Dutch East India Company across the Indian Ocean and the South China Sea. An Himanshu Prabha Ray important partner in this was Japan where the New Delhi, India Dutch established a factory in 1609 to be fol- lowed by the English in 1613. Though suspicion M.N. Pearson (ed.). Spices in the Indian Ocean and hostility marked the relationship between the World. "An Expanding World," Vol. XI; Hamps. Japanese Shogunate and foreign merchant groups, and Brookfield, VT: Variorum Press, 1996. it nevertheless continued, as it was advantageous xxxvii + 359 pp., tables, figures, illustrations, to both partners. index. US $115.95, cloth; ISBN 0-86078-510-6. It has been argued that trade cannot be studied in isolation as an economic phenomenon, This is a collection of fifteen a rticles in English but needs to be looked at within the larger socio- and French and one excerpt from Gracia de Orta, political and military context. In keeping with this "Colloquios das simples e drogas da India" on the objective, van Santen's study compares the per- spice-trade, mainly focusing on the pepper trade formance of Dutch and Gujarati merchants trad- from 1400 to 1700. Some, such as Frederic C. ing from Surat to the region of the Persian Gulf Lane's "The Mediterranean Spice Trade: Further and dealing in cotton piece goods. The analysis Evidence of its Revival in the Sixteenth Century" shows that differences in entrepreneurial behav- (1941), are quite old and set much of the terms iour between the Asian and western trader were for the debates. Most are well known to special- insignificant. But where the VOC had an edge ists (for example, two articles by Jan Kieniewicz was in their control of superior technological and on Kerala, Charles Wake's article on pepper- maritime means for enforcing their policies as imports in Europe or Charles Ralph Boxer's compared with those available to their Asian article on Atjeh and the spice-trade to the Red counterparts. Nor was the Company averse to Sea). This reviewer did not know two a rticles — using this advantage; in most cases market con- by Peter Musgrave and C.R. Da Silva. trol over a product was established only after There is a brief introduction to the a rticles by violence was used against Asian traders and their Michael Pearson (22 pages) which — as always rulers. with Pearson — does an excellent job in summa- Another paper that departs from the general rizing the state of knowledge on this topic until theme of commercial expansion relates to naviga- about 1985. But as these are mostly "classic" tion between Portugal and Asia in the sixteenth articles, Pearson does not confuse us with dis- and seventeenth centuries. Based on a quantita- cussing recent literature in his introduction. Thus, tive analysis of data collated from shipping lists, James Boyajian's challenge to the established the paper argues that for seven decades in the views on the size of the return2cargoes of the sixteenth century, from 1521 to 1590, the Carreira da India is not mentioned. Yet Pearson Carreira da India dominated Indian Ocean trade. does include Niels Steensgaard's older a rticle on The carrack emerged as the craft of commerce, the return-cargoes of the Carreira, though it is though earlier fleets comprised a combination of now seriously outdated. Similarly, new writing on naus, galleons, caravels and pinnaces, with a great the Dutch East India Company is not mentioned. diversity of tonnage. The complement of these We now know that the VOC had a lead over the vessels was equally disparate and included sail- English in the trade in Indian textiles as much as ors, gunners, carpenters, cooks, etc. as also elite in spices until the early eighteenth century (con- groups such as military and naval officers, bu- trary to Pearson's claim on p.xxxiii). reaucrats, merchants and missionaries. 1t was this It is this which makes this both an easy and latter category of captains and Jesuits that had an a difficult volume to review. Easy, because it is edge over the others in matters of survival, both hard to argue with a collection of articles which, in terms of better nutrition and a guaranteed place presumably, have been vetted by peer2review not in the ship's longboat in case of shipwreck. Sig- once but thrice (although not every statement can nificantly both these aspects of trade and eco- go unchallenged. It is simply not true, for 104 The Northern Mariner instance, that "over a broad price range the de- published in established and accessible journals. mand for spices in India was inelastic" as Om Prakash asserts in an article on the VOC [336]). R.J. Barendse Generally, then, the articles are fairly representa- Leiden, The Netherlands tive of the scholarship in this field. What makes the volume more difficult to Sinnapah Arasaratnam. Ceylon and the Dutch, review is the logic of the publication itself. What 1600-1800: External Influences and Internal kind of a market do the publishers seek to reach Changes in Early Modern Sri Lanka. Collected with this volume? It is too difficult and too spe- Studies Series; Aldershot, Hamps. & Brookfield, cialized for students and can hardly se rve as a VT: Variorum, 1996. xii + 332 pp., map, index. good introduction. For the specialists it hardly US $97.95, cloth; ISBN 0286078-57923. reflects "revisionist interpretations and new approach" as Russel-Wood claims in his introduc- The late Sinappah Arasaratnam was an active tion [xi] since it is a collection of older a rticles historian during forty prolific years. He contrib- which instead reflect the idéé recues. It may be uted extensively to numerous reputable journals, very useful to collect older articles if these are not to the point where readers without access to obtainable in libraries anywhere (for example, specialized libraries face real difficulty getting why is there not a reprint of the Chronistas do access to his publications. Ceylon and the Dutch Tissuary or the Revista das Colonias?). But one is therefore a welcome collection. can hardly claim that access to articles which The collection opens with "Ceylon and the appeared in journals like The American Historical Dutch, 1630-1800: an essay in historiography" Review is difficult. (1995), in which Arasaratnam comments on the As such this volume is the academic equiva- Dutch sources documenting Sri Lankan history: lent of Terminator 2 and Jaws 3. With mounting "We are thus left with a situation in which history production-costs publishers tend nowadays only has to be written primarily from the record of the to pick books with proven sales, whether it be a rulers and aggressors. Fortunately, the abundance book by Robert Ludlum or this one. "Established of the material available and the diversity of scholars" see their views published and re-pub- circumstances of its origin enable the critical lished, while younger scholars or those from researcher to engage in reconstruction with a view countries like Denmark, Holland, Russia or Spain to getting as close to the truth as possible." State which do not have an Anglo-Saxon academic archives in The Hague, Colombo, Madras and tradition are either published not at all or only Jakarta contain hundreds of meters of documents, with obscure local publishers. Such volumes tend all dealing with the so-called Dutch Period. The to reinforce the "winner take all" tendency in aca2 Dutch archives are particularly abundant and demic publishing and by implication in a narrow diverse, yet only a very limited pa rt has been academic job-market. If all publishers go for published. The archivists in the National Archives "safe" books as Variorum does (and they increas- in Colombo have engaged in a praiseworthy ingly do), then the result will be that a small attempt to edit an impo rtant series of English group of scholars will totally monopolize the translations of "Memoirs" of the Dutch Governors academic discussion and jobs — for the simple and administrators (Colombo 1910-1974). It is reason that they get their views published and obvious from his footnotes that Arasaratnam has others do not. made considerable use of these printed sources, Given that universi ty-budgets are limited and though he rarely gives us the kind of details expensive books like this will crowd out works that these sources are capable of supporting, published with smaller or non-English publishers. Arasaratnam has provided us with a considerable I am therefore not happy with this book — not amount of information, as when he underlines the with its contents so much as with the concept role of local trade by members of the fishers' behind it — and would strongly encourage Vario2 caste in his synthetic survey of "Ceylon in the rum to publish either original research or older Indian Ocean trade: 1500-1800" (1987). work which is difficult to obtain, rather than mere Through his articles, Arasaratnam describes compilations of articles which have already been the drastic effects of the colonial presence in the Book Reviews 105

Sri Lankan economy between the sixteenth and shows how members of governing castes adapted eighteenth centuries. The island had much to offer to the new situation while still maintaining their to the outside world — everything from cinnamon positions through conversion to Christianity. Yet to elephants to precious gems. The returns their acceptance of baptism for their children, financed imports of Indian cotton, rice and other their attendance at church, and their willingness commodities, while the profits benefitted foreign to send their children to schools managed by the and Sri Lankan traders alike. This situation, Company proved to be superficial, even insincere, however, changed thoroughly after the arrival of in the opinions of the Dutch. Tamil officials in the Europeans in the sixteenth century. Sri Lankan north certainly adhered to their Hindu practices, traders and shippers gradually lost their share in while their colleagues in the South never gave up the long distance trade as well as in the valuable Buddhism. Labour is another theme explored by regional connections maintained with South Arasaratnam in these essays. The Company India. The Sri Lankan economy was increasingly ordered the construction and maintenance of subordinated to the interests first of the Portu- defence works, warehouses and other buildings, guese and then the Dutch. Under the Dutch East all of which required mobilization of local labour India Company (VOC), locals were excluded, as well as slaves from South India or from the with few exceptions, from all international trade. Indonesian Archipelago. Members of the fishers' These themes are carefully explored in sev- caste developed into major professional groups eral articles. In "The Kingdom of Kandy: aspects such as transporters, craftsmen and carpenters. of its external relations and commerce" (1960), The fishers' caste, Arasaratnam explains, there2 Arasaratnam examines the struggle between the fore moved upwards in the social strata under the Dutch and the Kings of Kandy to regain revenues Dutch administration. from the trade with India. According to At this juncture Arasaratnam shifts his Arasaratnam, "Loss of political independence attention to the history of the Dutch education brought commercial dependence in its trains." In system. In "Protestants: the first phase, 1650- "Dutch sovereignty in Ceylon: a historical survey 1880" (1978) and in "The first century of of its problems" (1958), Arasaratnam discusses Protestant Christianity in Jaffna, 1658-1750" the subject of the legitimacy of the Dutch pres- (1985) he examines the Dutch Seminary of ence in the island by delving deep into the views Nallur, founded in 1690, and the Seminary of of each party on the issue of sovereignty over the Colombo, founded in 1696. Both institutions, island. In "Baron van Imhoff and Dutch policy established to educate the children of Sri Lankan and Ceylon 1736-1740" (1963), Arasaratnam elites, operated successfully. explains how the Governor wished to retaliate The collection closes with an essay on "Sri against the Kandyan Kingdom by creating enmity Lanka's Tamils: under colonial rule" (1994). It is between the two parties who fought for succes- an understandable choice. Arasaratnam was born sion — a strategy similar to that employed suc- in the North, so that the history of the old King- cessfully to divide the Sultanate of Mataram in dom of Jaffna was close to his heart. Based on his Java early in the eighteenth century. Van Imhoff broad learning, Arasaratnam gives a beautiful even considered invading Kandy, but was eventu- synthetic survey, starting with the first Tamil ally convinced by the superiors in Batavia that migrants in the third century BC. He focuses on warfare would be too costly, if possible at all. The the changes and developments of Tamil society war which eventually took place between the under colonial rule, some of which in his opinion Dutch and the Kandyan kingdom in 1761 proved influenced Tamil identity. Arasaratnam insists them right. that "there were positive factors that contributed In "The indigenous ruling class under colo- to the building of communal solidarity and self- nial rule in Dutch maritime Ceylon" (1971) and in consciousness." It is always risky to connect the "Elements of social and economic change in past and present too closely in a causal way. It is, Dutch maritime Ceylon (Sri Lanka), 1658-1796" moreover, sheer coincidence that 1994, the year (1985), Arasaratnam discusses the impact of Arasaratnam wrote this article, was the year that Dutch domination on social and administrative the old Dutch fort of Jaffna was demolished by sectors in the Sri Lankan society. For instance, he the Tamil Tigers. Arasaratnam might have been 106 The Northern Mariner astonished, since wiping out these unique monu- The articles are printed in the order in which mental traces carries no weight to change the p ast. they originally appeared. This seems an obvious The Dutch period is a part of Sri Lankan history, decision, if the intent was to show the evolution a period in which many changes have occurred of Furber's interests. Sometimes, however, one that are worthwhile to study. Throughout his very returns in a later phase to one's old favourites — productive life, Arasaratnam was fascinated by and Furber did so — and then a thematic order this process of change; as he notes at the end of becomes more logical. The priority given to the the opening article, the interaction of Ceylon and chronological appearance of the articles rather the Dutch presents an "interesting interaction than their thematic consistency means that the between a traditional Asian society and a modern- first article deals with proposals for Anglo-Span- ising European power which is intruding into ish commercial agreements concerning the trade many sectors of that society." of India, China, the Philippines and Spanish America in 1793, while A rticle XII covers the Lodewijk J. Wagenaar Indian trade in the Pacific 160021800; Article IV Amsterdam, The Netherlands describes Madras in 1787, while Article X deals with Madras in the mid-eighteenth century. And Holden Furber; Rosane Rocher (ed.). Private A rticle V on the overland route from Europe to Fortunes and Company Profits in the India Trade India is followed by an essay on the financial in the Eighteenth Century. Collected Studies records of the East India Company. Series; Aldershot, Hamps. & Brookfield, VT: Human relations and conditions in trade in Variorum, 1997. xi + 322 pp., frontispiece, index. Asia, particularly in eighteenth century India, US $89.95, cloth; ISBN 0-86078-619-6. have Furber's interest. He takes his readers to the archives, showing them the shipping-lists, corres- The Variorum Press continues to reprint a rticles, pondence, and other documents. Amazed by the lectures and essays of well-respected scholars. It steady increase of the British count ry trade in is apparently a profitable business, though the Asia from the 1720s onwards, Furber then dis- price of these volumes must surely discourage the covered the importance of this trade, of which the individual buyer. Several Indian historians, C.R. Dutch VOC became the most significant victim in Boxer and others have meanwhile seen their the eighteenth century. He shows how interwoven short-length output reprinted. The articles in their the interests of Europeans and non-Europeans original style are always simply photocopied and were in this trade and how rich individuals be2 assembled, with the original pagination main- came while in their companies' se rvice. The title tained. This "Collected Studies Series" has by of this volume alludes to this, but does not cover now become so extended that no longer are only the full cargo. Though four articles deal with the top rank scholars having their work re-published. three British presidencies in India (Madras, This particular volume, however, belongs to Bengal and Bombay), most of the others do not the old tradition. Between 1950 and 1975, Holden have a direct relation to the title. Thus, one essay Furber (1903-1993), professor at the Universi ty examines American trade with India between of Pennsylvania, was one of the best-known 1784 and 1812, another focuses upon a mysteri- experts of the history of European expansion in ous scheme for an entrepôt on an uninhabited Asia. Since 1976 students have profited from his island in the Eastern seas, offered in 1786 to the standard work Rival Empires of Trade in the Swedish crown, while another concerns the stock- Orient 1600-1800. Furber's broad knowledge of holders in the E ast India Company, among whom British, Dutch, French and Scandinavian archives were a large number of Dutchmen. Between 1783 and literature had made him the ideal person to and 1791 about one thousand Dutchmen bought write such a nice comprehensive survey, in which or sold India shares, so that one could almost call he compares and characterises the different this company the Anglo2Dutch E ast India Com2 European Asiatic companies. The Variorum pany. The volume is full of such insights. volume contains fourteen minor products of his pen, published between 1935 and 1976; two Jaap R. Bruijn lectures are published here for the first time. Leiden, The Netherlands Book Reviews 107

Pieter Emmer and Femme Gaastra (eds.). The trades in exotic products. There is nothing of Organization of Interoceanic Trade in European substance on the English Navigation Acts and Expansion, 1450-1800. "An Expanding World," their bearing on the country's subsequent com- Vol. XIII; Aldershot. Hamps. and Brookfield, mercial and naval primacy. Smuggling, which VT: Variorum Press, 1996. xxvi + 429 pp., maps, with tea, silver and tobacco reached an unprece2 tables, figures, index. US $134.95, cloth; ISBN 02 dented scale, importance and sophistication, is 86078-505-X. largely ignored. And most remarkably, indige- nous commerce is overlooked, notwithstanding European colonial empires may now be virtually (and contrary to what the editors assert) an exten- extinct but their legacy is still very much with us. sive literature on everything from the No rth It was most recently manifested in the attention American fur trade to successful local competi- lavished on the quincentenaries of the voyages of tion with Europeans in Asia. Columbus and da Gama. Outstanding for value, The articles reprinted amply illustrate the scope and quality in the resultant flood of learn- general points raised in the editorial introduction. ing old and new is Variorum's republication of The oldest dates from 1929 and the most recent key essays dealing with nearly every aspect of from 1990, giving readers a bird's eye view of Europe's initial expansion into the wider world. shifts in historical interests and fashions. Some In the volume under review the distinguished are primarily presentations of the fruits of detailed Dutch scholars Pieter Emmer and Femme Gaastra archival work, such as Herbert Heaton's attractive bring together eighteen articles concerned, di- account of the fortunes of a Leed's merchant in rectly or indirectly, with the ways in which this Napoleonic Brazil (which incidentally throws a process affected the organization of trade. In a flood of light on the social and economic condi- crisp introduction they neatly sketch the salient tions then prevailing there). So, too, in their res- features, arguing, as few would deny, that though pective contributions, Bowen and Vermeulen the impact of expansion was substantial it was not examine, with solid statistical backing, the diffi2 fundamental and that the roots of Europe's subse- culties of recruiting Europeans to serve in Asia, quent industrialization lay elsewhere. They and the even greater difficulties of getting them outline the different ways in which different there. Other authors suggest revisions to the powers attempted to handle new long-distance received wisdom of their time, with Jonathan trades, contrasting the royal or private monopo- Israel sharply criticizing the depiction of Dutch lies favoured by the pioneering Iberian monar2 activities in the Mediterranean in 1590-1713 by chies with the joint-stock (and also monopoly) Fernand Braude! and Ralph Davis. A few papers, corporations eventually employed to such good notably those of Pearson and Chaudhuri, inge2 effect by Holland and England. They consider the niously and fruitfully apply ideas and techniques circumstances in which such companies failed, derived from other disciplines to historical data. and they stress the extent to which even the most Naturally enough, some of the essays repro- effective were unable to control the doings of duced are starting to show their age. The statistics private individuals, whose role in oceanic com- in A.P. Usher's classic account (1932) of the merce remained as vital as in Europe's earlier failures of the Spanish shipbuilding industry are trade. Pursuing the theme of the fragility of suspect and need to be compared with those metropolitan authority they further note that (themselves not above suspicion) in Pierre imperial growth was accompanied by the spread Chaunu's massive Seville et l'Atlantique, 1504- of piracy and privateering, whose economic 1650. But the oldest piece in the collection, that impact was not, however, necessarily harmful — (1929) of Violet Harbour discussing the differing at least on those engaged in it. evolution of English and Dutch ships, still holds Given the limited amount of space available the field. An even more ancient truth, the dictum to the editors and the sheer mass of material con- of St. Francis Xavier that empire meant no more fronting them, some topics inevitably receive less than to conjugate the verb "to rob" in all its attention than they deserve and some are simply moods and tenses, is notably confirmed by squeezed out. There is little, other than inciden- Zahedieh's paper on early Jamaican piracy. Yet tally, on the growth of the European redistributive this also reveals the extent to which such prime- 108 The Northern Mariner val means of capital accumulation could underpin theories of Andre Gunder Frank and Immanuel economic growth. Wallerstein. "Mercantilism" is little more than a To assemble a representative collection of cliché here, rather than an economic milieu within essays on so large a theme as trade and European which there were changing priorities. expansion is a formidable task with which Emmer The introduction can afford to be brief and Gaastra have striven valiantly and on the because the first of the eight articles reprinted whole successfully. They have reprinted and under the title "general trade" is Teodoro Hampe- made generally available seminal a rticles other- Martinez's thoughtful overview "Structure and wise hidden in various specialist journals. They Magnitude of the Colonial Economic Interdepen- include contributions from eight countries in three dencies (1500-1750): A World Trade in Develop- continents which will be of value to experts and ment" (1990). The European perspective is dis- students alike, not only for the ideas and informa2 cernible, and a more specifically Iberian slant to tion which they contain, but also for the indica- both argument and sources adds to the article's tions which they give as to how thinking on so freshness. (The same can be said for these two fundamental a matter has evolved. volumes more generally.) In sketching the Afri- can, American and Asian trades with Europe, G.V. Scammell Hampe-Martinez discovers no "crisis of the Cambridge, England seventeenth century" in world trade. Jose Jobson de Andrade Arruda's 1991 essay on mercantile Susan Socolow (ed.). The Atlantic Staple Trade. investment in the Luso-Brazilian Empire also Volume I: Commerce and Politics and Volume II: includes a wide-ranging and insightful theoretical The Economics of Trade. "An Expanding World," discussion. The theoretical and empirical both Vol. IX; Aldershot. Hamps. and Brookfield, VT: lead to the conclusion that it paid to have colo- Variorum Press, 1996. xxiv +807 pp., tables, nies. He also suggests that highly mobile, non2 figures, index. US $215, cloth; ISBN 0-86078- specialized, and very profitable merchant capital 511-4. became blended with less profitable and less mobile investments in production (agricultural or Those interested in early modern contributions to industrial) only when profit margins from trading "globalization" will want to know about this were reduced. Other reprints in this category ambitious reprint series from Variorum Press, include Ralph Davis' two classic articles on currently projected as thirty-four volumes under English foreign trade, R.C. Nash on the Irish thirty-one titles. The series subtitle, "The Euro- Atlantic trade (1985), Paul Butel's 1986 a rticle, pean Impact on World History, 1450-1800," is "Traditions and Changes in French Atl antic Trade appropriate, though one remembers Susan Between 1780 and 1830" and the pioneering Subramanyam challenging its "North Atlantic "Trade Between Western Africa and the Atlantic triumphalism" while introducing an earlier vol- World in the Pre-Colonial Era," by David Eltis ume in the same series. and Lawrence C. Jennings (1988). Susan M. Socolow, a Latin Americanist at The five articles chosen to represent studies Emory University, assembles two volumes that of "political economy" avoid discussion of the are representative of the general approach of this economic policies of fiscal-military states, and series. Thirty-three English2language articles and emphasize Spanish American smuggling and war. book chapters, originally published between 1936 Engel Sluiter's fifty-year2old article on early and 1992 though two-thirds of them were pub- Dutch-Spanish rivalry in the Caribbean continues lished since 1980, are given continuous pagina- to be useful, detailing the place of the Araya Bay tion in addition to their original, allowing a useful (Venezuela) salt as the lure that brought thou2 general index. The editor's introduction is sur- sands of Dutch mariners to become familiar with prisingly brief and, like the selection, makes it navigation in the area where they raked salt, clear that the focus will be on specific empirical smuggled, and eventually raided. Zacarias work. She shows little interest in the original Moutoukias' article (1988) on the seventeenth- "staples theory" of Harold 1nnis and Mel Watkins, century trade of Buenos Aires explores a more or the controversial claims of the dependency structural weakness in Spanish control, namely Book Reviews 109 government connivance at illegal trade to help Christopher French's 1987 sketch of productivity finance local administration. Ironically, the changes in British Atlantic ship utilization is arrangements actually strengthened a smuggler- complemented by Kenneth Morgan's 1989 study landlord élite that needed and supported the same of Bristol's Atlantic shipping patterns. Julian imperial regime it violated. The first of two sho rt Gwyn's "Shipbuilding for the Royal Navy in articles by Jerry W. Cooney (1987, 1989) dis2 Colonial New England" completes the offerings cusses Y ankee smuggling in the Rio de la Plata in on shipping. Geoffrey Rossano's engaging, if the decades after the American revolution, reveal- indiscriminate, 1988 account of the colonial ing smuggling in its more traditional role as a Atlantic shipowning ventures of Samuel solvent of imperial loyalties. Cooney's second Townsend of Oyster Bay, Long Island, should article studies the merchant consulado of Buenos have been included in this section as well, rather Aires between 1796 and 1806. The volume closes than later in the volume. with Selwyn H.H. Carrington's familiar 1987 The concluding reprints, on "trade and eco- article on the devastating impact of the American nomy," include Morris Altman's (1988) statistical Revolution on British West Indian economies. study of economic growth in early eighteenth- The ten articles on "specific commodities," century Canada, as well as the familiar magiste- which dominate the second volume, avoid the rial overviews of Jacob Price (1984) and John J. fish, fur, timber, or wheat that might have special McCusker and Russell Menard (1985). interest for readers of The Northern Mariner/Le Readers of this journal will likely be familiar Marin du nord. Nor is there anything on the sugar with many of the classic articles reprinted here industry except Gilman Ostrander's durable 1956 that concern the English-speaking Atl antic, article on the colonial molasses trade. The though it is helpful to have a number of them so Carolina rice trade is represented by R.C. Nash's handy. It is notewothy that, of the sixteen articles excellent 1992 article, which supercedes Hen ry C. that concern Latin America, only two concern the Dethloff's 1982 study, also reproduced here.Nash sixteenth-century heyday of the Iberian Atlantic. exemplifies the newer commodity histories that This may be accidental, or it may reflect the detail markets as thoroughly as production. Jacob interests of those Latin American scholars who M. Price's general article, on the relationship are likely to write in English. This collection will between Chesapeake economic development and be of special value to those readers without a the rise of the French tobacco monopoly, antici- knowledge of Spanish or Portuguese who are pates many features of his definitive subsequent curious about recognized scholarship on colonial work on various aspects of the trade. Only the Latin American trades. However, the main market comment "Local regulations against smoking for this rather high2priced cargo of historical were still being passed in Burgundy in the staples will be those libraries that do not have an 1680s." [441] reminds the reader that the a rticle established collections of the relevant journals. was written in I 964.Catherine Lugar's companion piece, on the Bahia tobacco industry in the late Ian K. Steele colonial period, reveals a very different pa ttern. London, Ontario Also included are well-known a rticles on cochi- neal, logwood, cacao, and hides, by Raymond Patrick Manning (ed.). Slave Trades, 1500-1800: Lee (1947), A rthur Wilson (1936), Eugenio Globalization of Forced Labour. 'An Expanding Pinero (1988), and Rudy Bauss (1986) respec- World," Vol. XV; Aldershot. Hamps. and Brook- tively. This section ends with Dauril Alden's field, VT: Variorum Press, 1996. xxxiv + 361 pp., 1964 study of Yankee sperm whaling in Brazilian maps, tables, figures, index. US $115.95, cloth; waters at the end of the eighteenth century. ISBN 0-86078-512-2. If the discussion of commodities shows a strong Latin American emphasis, the articles on This collection of reprinted articles forms a part "shipping" do not. Jerry W. Cooney's third article of the multi-volume series A n Expanding World. in this collection, on merchant shipbuilding on The European Impact on World History, 1450- the Paraguay River in the decade after 1796, is 1800, edited by A.J.R. Russell2Wood. The pur- the only study with a Latin American focus. pose of the series is to collect a rticles on various 110 The Northern Mariner aspects of the global impact of the European seminal articles were left out, while others were overseas expansion, scattered in publications on included because they dealt with impo rtant but a broad range of often unrelated topics. These poorly covered areas or themes. Overall, Man- aspects include cross-cultural encounters, tech- ning's strategy was very successful, for the nology, commerce, governments and notions of volume presents the African slave trade and its empires, societies and cultures created by the ramifications from a remarkably rich kaleido2 expansion, exploitation, and the power relation- scope of perspectives. ship between Europe and the world. Although the Despite its impressive breadth of coverage, present volume, Slave Trades, is listed in the however, the collection does not fulfil the mission "Trade and Commodities" segment, the selection expressed in the title: to document the various of material makes it relevant to most of the forms and branches of trade in slaves in the themes covered by the Expanding World series. period 1500-1800. The volume is conceptualized The collection is divided into five sections, around the export of slaves from one continent, supported by a general bibliography. The first Africa, primarily to the Americas. The enslave- section, with three articles, offers an overview of ment of native Americans constitutes a secondary the African slave trade. It highlights the major focus. Slave trade and slavery in other parts of the carriers, volume estimates, and the impact on world, in particular Asia, are either poorly cov- African and American societies. The next two ered or entirely neglected. This is an impo rtant sections form the bulk of the collection. The first omission, given the claim expressed in the vol- five essays deal with various aspects of the slave ume's title that the overseas expansion brought trade from the fifteenth to the seventeenth centu- about globalization of slavery and forced labour, ries. They are followed by six a rticles studying a notion that many would consider overstated. the trade and its abolition in the eighteenth and Scholars of maritime history will find the early nineteenth centuries. The last section con- volume of interest if only because much of the tains three case studies illustrating the effects of slave trade was seabome. The essays offer data on the slave trade outside Africa. carrying capacity of the transoceanic trade, cargo The selection of essays stresses the geo- capacity of ships, and the transportation logistics graphical and topical diversity involved in the of the Atlantic slave trade. However, only one study of the export of slaves from Africa. In- article, by Jean-Michel Filliot, deals directly with cluded are not only articles that deal with Africa shipboard issues, such as manpower and daily and the Americas but also a few that focus on the operations of the slave ships, illness on board, Mediterranean and southwestern Asia. The papers and so on. Unfortunately, this a rticle is one of the pursue a broad variety of themes, including the weakest in the collection: it is only eight pages need for labour, the engine behind the growth of long; parts of it are in outline format; and it mixes Atlantic slave trade; its demographic dimensions, extremely general information with very interest- social and political links, and economic impor- ing but undeveloped data. tance; and last but not least the slaves themselves. Overall, the volume presents a well2con2 They are shown not only as passive objects of the ceived, rich, and inspiring selection of recent trade, but as proactive players who resisted writings on the history of the African slave trade. enslavement, sought to avoid exploitation, and It effectively illustrates the complexity and multi- pursued strategies aimed at improving their lot. ple dimensions of a key and haunting aspect of Patrick Manning, the volume's editor, se- European overseas expansion and its impact on lected articles both by scholars who had made world history. Although weak in its coverage of major contributions to the study of slavery and regions and issues that did not form a part of the the African slave trade, and by those whose focus Africa-Americas slave trading nexus, Slave usually lies elsewhere. Since the key objective of Trades, 150021800 represents not only a valuable the collection was to illustrate the thematic com- component of the Expanding World series, but plexity and geographical extent of the slave trade, also a very useful research and teaching tool. the editor was obliged to work with papers of varying quality, length, and level of specializa- Ivana Elbl tion. As a result, some important authors and Peterborough, Ontario Book Reviews 111

William F. Page. The Dutch Triangle: The Neth2 of which are lists of slaves or merchandise that erlands and the Atlantic Slave Trade, 1621-1664. have little analytical value. Apart from an appro- New York & London: Garland Publishing, 1997. priate sense of outrage at the treatment of slaves, xxxv + 262 pp., tables, illustrations, maps, photo- it is hard to divine an overall thesis. The book graphs, notes, index. US $66, cloth; ISBN 0- does provide a useful account of the tensions and 8153-2881-8. struggles within the New Netherlands colony and Dutch relations with Amerindians and English, as This is a curious work. Ostensibly a revision of a well as anecdotes of people of African descent 1975 New York University PhD thesis, it con- who lived under Dutch rule. tains few of the primary sources that one would The book is easy to read, with a genial and at expect in a dissertation, there is little evidence of times colloquial style; narration invariably takes revision (if by this is meant incorporation of the precedence over analysis. Thus, "[t]hat the French recent literature) and, despite its title, it is not suffered great losses by these raids suited the particularly focused on the slave trade. A more Dutch just fine, for after all, the French were accurate description would be a survey of Dutch Catholics, the Dutch were Protestants." [150] In activities in the seventeenth-century Atlantic no sense does the book engage the historiography world based on the older secondary literature. or challenge existing conceptions of the Dutch Thus the author is able to write "European histori- role in the early modern Atlantic World. The ans rarely accept the proposition that an African sections on the slave trade offer nothing beyond boy was better off growing up in his village...than the work of Johannes Postma, Pieter Emmer and being taken away to some `civilized' world, Ernst van den Boogart, but as a summary of enslaved." [218] But it is hard to believe this was Dutch activities involving Africans, with particu2 true in 1975, much less a quarter century later. lar reference to North America, it is a useful The volume might see service as an introduc- source for students and teachers. tory survey of the early Dutch Atlantic empire. It has a short introduction on slavery in the Atlantic David Eltis world, and a brief review of the European back- Ottawa, Ontario ground to Dutch expansion into the Atlantic. The main body provides a chapter each on the Dutch Maggie Montesinos Sale. The Slumbering Vol2 in Africa, South America and the Caribbean cano: American Slave Ship Revolts and the together, and North America except for the Carib2 Production of Rebellious Masculinity. Durham, bean. North America so defined gets an extra NC: Duke University Press, 1997. x + 264 pp., chapter on Africans in the New World, though notes, bibliography, index. US $49.95, cloth; there were far fewer peoples of African descent ISBN 0-8223-1983-7; $16.95, paper; ISBN 02 on the North American mainland than in South 8223-1992-6. America and the Caribbean. As this suggests, there are striking and unexplained imbalances. As the abolitionist crusade intensified during the Ninety pages of text deal with New Netherlands second third of the nineteenth century, and radi- — the destination of a tiny fragment of the slave cals openly sought to redefine the meaning of trade incorporated into the title as well as the American nationalism by redefining the role of slavery that concerns the introduction — com- blacks in American society, slaves successfully pared to a mere sixty pages on Dutch Brazil, revolted aboard the schooners Amistad and Surinam, and the Dutch Caribbean together. Creole. Contemporary readers not only knew of Moreover, at times, the book does not even focus these "mutinies" but also had the opportunity to on the Dutch. The chapter on Africa is sub-titled read two fictionalized accounts of slave ship "Europeans in West Africa," yet the Dutch do not revolts published shortly thereafter — Frederick appear until nearly half way through it. The dis- Douglass' "The Heroic Slave" (1853) and Herman cussion on New Netherlands makes heavy use of Melville's "Benito Cereno" (1855). direct quotes from published collections of docu- Maggie Montesinos Sale's ambitious book ments, some of them a page long. This section uses these slave ship revolts and stories as depar2 also contains numerous descriptive tables, most ture points to reconsider American nationalism, 112 The Northern Mariner

Lockean natural rights, and race as they were then limited the possible range of meanings of the understood. At her best, Sale presents the ironies rebellions in the popular press." [64] underlying Americans' trope of revolutionary The next four chapters are devoted , one struggle in light of popular responses to slave each, to the Amistad revolt, the Creole revolt, rebellions aboard ship. Clearly the notion that "Benito Cereno," and "The Heroic Slave." Al- "the cause of liberty justifies rebellion" had very though the chapter on the Creole is noteworthy explicit limitations in a post-revolutionary society for its attention to international law and the that still embraced plantation slavery. implications of legal language, Sale generally As a practitioner of Cultural Studies Sale's seems more comfortable analyzing the fiction concern is not with "what happened" (which she than the actual revolt. In an elegant assessment of would probably claim is unknowable); or with "Benito Cereno" she shows how Melville normal- narrative stories that make sense of what hap- ized white supremacy, and denied Blacks' voices. pened. Instead, following Michel Foucault, she is Her critique of "The Heroic Slave" is the concerned with the intrinsic contradictions that most compelling. Frederick Douglass, she argues, define concepts such as "American" or "man," and "appropriated a late-eighteenth-century notion of the struggles in which people engage to redefine manhood, of republican male virtue, characterized those concepts. Her book is less about slave-ship by bravery, eloquence, moral restraint, concern revolts than it is about the normalization of mas- for the common good, and a willingness to die for culine white supremacy during the middle of the liberty, and transported it into a different histori- nineteenth century, and the racialization of the cal context...in which racial difference had be- masculinity at the heart of American political come one of the most salient ways of signifying identity. She approaches these concerns by theo2 social power." [185] Through Douglass' fictional rizing a variety of discourses — legalistic, nation- protagonist, Madison Washington, gender soli- alistic, racialistic, and masculine. The book does darity among men transcended racial difference, a fine job comparing public reaction to the fic- thus redefining the rhetoric of the Revolution, but tionalized accounts of revolt with public reaction at a cost of marginalizing black women. to the actual episodes of revolt. But the author's Provocative, complex, and tantalizing, The concerns with so many questions and so many Slumbering Volcano is nevertheless not an easy complex relationships give the book a certain read. Sale is at once historian, literary critic, and entropic quality, despite its probing analyses. theorist exploring a variety of discourses. The The power of this text is its indictment of the result cannot help but be a bit fragmented. Never- limitations of liberal political theory. Sale theless, there are many rewards here for students achieves this by historicizing masculinity and of cultural studies interested in the interrelation- establishing linkages between masculinity, race ship of gender, race and rhetoric. Readers of this individualism and property. These concepts are journal will each decide for themselves how The revealed as fluid, protean, and contested. Thus,. Slumbering Volcano contributes to our ongoing Sale knows that "Racialism, like other discourse, discussion of the definition of maritime studies. does not operate according to rules of reason and coherence, but rather disperses multiple, often W. Jeffrey Bolster contradictory asse rtions, thereby becoming in- Barrington, New Hampshire creasingly powerful and persuasive." [161] The book consists of an introduction, a Charles E. Davies. The Blood-Red Arab Flag. An conclusion, and five chapters. Chapter One, Investigation into Qasimi Piracy 1797-1820. "Rhetorics of Nation, Race and Masculinity," Exeter: University of Exeter Press, 1997. xix + presents three competing versions of American 453 pp., illustrations, maps, bibliography, index. national development — a Northern version, a £40.00, cloth; ISBN 0-85989-509-2. Distributed Southern version, and an African American in the USA by Northwestern Universi ty Press, version. Sale uses these to contextualize the Evanston, IL debates about slave-ship revolts. She then ana- lyzes the discursive strategies employed by It is, perhaps, fitting that this book should be various groups as they "produced, debated, and reviewed by the resident of a country that contin- Book Reviews 113 ues to agonize over the question why the captain revisionism but many traditionalists, inevitably, of its cruiser Sydney in November 1941 allowed accused it of a smaller or greater degree of his ship to approach the camouflaged German polemicism and biased partisanship. Although I raider Kormoran so closely that it could be sunk feel that such charges were hugely exaggerated virtually without trace and with the loss of all on and largely based on orientalist inclinations, it is board. Much of the events painstakingly des- most welcome that Davies has now presented us cribed and analysed by Charles Davies revolve with the results of his massive research, painstak- around the meeting at sea of British vessels (both ing analysis and well-considered judgements. commercial and naval) with hostile craft that only Indeed, if his book has any fault, it is that it is so in the very last moment showed their true colours dense that it might deter some readers who do not — often with disastrous results. trust their intellectual staying power. That, how- The purpose of Davies' study is to provide a ever, would be a real shame: The Blood-Red Arab definitive revision of what for the moment may Flag offers such a detailed and surgically sharp be called the question of the "Qasimi Piracy," analysis of British policy and action, on the one which provoked the E ast India Company to make hand, and the maritime history of the Gulf in two attacks on the Qasimi capital Ras al2 general and the Qawasim in particular, that it may Khaimah, 1809/10 and 1819/20 and establish the indeed, for a considerable time, be regarded as the system of treaties that culminated in the 1853 definitive work on the subject. Perpetual Treaty of Maritime Peace. This British The range of themes canvassed by Davies in influence, in turn, prevented the participating order to explain the intensity and nature of emirates from being conquered by the Sa'udis Qasimi activity and operations at sea is vast as he and resulted ultimately, in 1971, in their constitut2 delves into the political, economic, social and cul- ing the independent United Arab Emirates. To tural dimensions of contemporary Arab life. He develop these themes and arguments, Davies has correctly emphasizes both the extent and rela- meticulously and exhaustively researched all tively great value of maritime trade in the Gulf available primary sources, in both English and and western Indian Ocean and the close connec- Arabic, that can throw light on his subject. tions between land and sea. In particular, and here The significance of the subject of Qasimi lies the major factor of the sudden rise in Qasimi "piracy" lies both in the immediate and long-term activity and its violent character, the eastward consequences of British policy and in the neces- thrust of the Wahhabi Sa'udis into Qasimi terri2 sity of reevaluating the orthodoxy of colonialist tory and Oman is discussed and assessed in its and imperialist historiography in a post2Eurocen- full ramifications, as is their sudden collapse tric world. The classical image of Arab piracy in though the intervention of Egypt's Ibrahim Pasha. the early nineteenth century in the Gulf and Arab maritime culture, Davies suggests, had western Indian Ocean was built on the European many elements in common with that of the desert maritime and legal models of the seventeenth and bedouin: a freebooting nature in which raids and eighteenth century, in which pirates were seen as individual valour were written highly within a standing outside all human society, carrying no context of seemingly interminable intertribal flag of any recognized state, and being liable to rivalry with ever changing alliances and enmities. capture and sentencing by all nations. This view But there were also major differences: ships did was strongly challenged in 1986 by a truly indig2 belong to certain political entities and maritime enous voice, Sultan Muhammad al2Qasimi of warfare, therefore, had to be seen as much more Sharjah, who, in his The Myth of Arab Piracy in than a ritualistic, if occasionally violent, rite of the Gulf turned the tables on previous British passage. Raids at sea were undertaken for both historians by claiming that his forebears had been economic gain and political advantage that ac- legitimate maritime traders engaged in bi tter but crued from it. One might well say (Davies himself perfectly legal struggles with other Arab powers does not make the point) that the Gulf in this — above all, with the EIC's major ally, Oman. No respect hardly differed from the endless wars that piracy there, but a complex form of naval warfare had characterized European waters in previous sanctioned and carried out by organized states. centuries, especially when it is taken into account Al2Qasimi's work was far-reaching in its that there was, indeed, one political constant: the 114 The Northern Mariner enmity between the Qawasim and Oman, whose this book is highly recommended. Davies has rulers cleverly entangled the British in their made a major contribution to a crucial period of complex manoeuvres. Davies is especially good Gulf and British history which maritime histori- and convincing in following and explaining the ans will read with great advantage. kaleidoscopic political changes in southeastern Arabia; here his comprehensive research pays Frank Broeze rich dividends. Nedlands, Western Australia For readers interested more in naval opera- tions, Davies' book is as rich in its analysis and Jesse Lemisch. Jack Tar vs. John Bull: The Role judicious in its judgements. Again, attention is of New York's Seamen in Precipitating the Revo- given to both affairs of high policy and matters of lution. New York: Garland Publishing, 1997. xx practical detail; especially poignant (hence the + 180 pp., bibliographical note, index. US $41, particular introduction to this review) is his cloth; ISBN 0-8153-2788-9. discussion of the very real dilemmas faced by naval commanders who approached or were The title of Jesse Lemisch's Jack Tar vs. John approached by boats that displayed no sign or Bull: The Role of New York's Seamen in Precipi2 symbol of their identity. On this point, I should tating the Revolution is fairly self-descriptive. have liked to have seen more about the crucial This is a study of seamen in New York on the eve question of flags: was it indeed so that all Arabs of the American Revolution and their political basically carried the same red flag (see, for in- interaction ashore as the American colonies began stance, p. 144) or could they differ from place to to drift toward revolution. Lemisch originally place in shades of red that escaped the British eye completed the work in 1962 as his PhD disse rta- (see the colours of the still current flags of Bah2 tion at Yale University . Ever since, Jack Tar vs. rain, Qatar and those of the individual shaikh- John Bull has been a formative and impo rtant doms of the UAE)? Why the "blood-red" in the work in American historiography, both in terms title of the book — is it a mere marketing device of the originality of the topic and the author's or does it refer to any "official" definition of the "from the bottom up" approach to history. Qasimi colour? Why did the new Qasimi flag Nevertheless, the present volume is disap2 proposed in Bruce's provisional agreement of pointing on several accounts. Marcus Rediker's 1814 with the Qawasim include the Shahadah "Foreword," which begins with himself and "There is no God but Allah and Muhammad is his Lemisch searching Moscow for Siberian miners Messenger"? Was it an acknowledgement of the on a hunger strike, painted an almost pathetic Qasimi alliance with the Sa'udis who still bear picture of not-so-"New Left" historians apparently witness in their green, Wahhabi, flag? traumatized by the collapse of the Soviet Union, One can argue with Davies on some minor a mood that I believe trivializes Lemisch's work points. Basing his text specifically on primary by focusing on it as a political rather than a sources, he eschews "public" discussions with serious historical effo rt. That is not, of course, to earlier historians. Although the book would have deny the political aspect of Jack Tar vs. John been more voluminous, its impact would have Bull, but I think the staying power that Rediker been greater, as readers now must make their own later rightly attributes to Lemisch's work has comparisons and judgements. Arab boats and more to do with his historical adroitness than his pearling should also have been discussed in more political astuteness. After all, the bottom line is detail and much earlier in the book. On the other simple: Jack Tar vs. John Bull outlasted the hand, although the dichotomy between the narra- Soviet Union! Another major disappointment tive of all the various incidents and the interpreta- with the text is that, despite the passage of thirty- tive part of the book loaded me with reservations five years, Lemisch has still not followed through when I saw its table of contents, having read the on his promise [xviii] to develop more fully and book I must concede that this organisation does to expand his thesis into a "completed work" that work. Equally effective are the appendices, and would "deal with other colonies as well." Instead, the eighty-nine pages of fine2print footnotes are a the reader is presented with a manuscript that the real treasure trove. Even with a price tag of £40, author four decades ago himself termed "frankly Book Reviews 115

fragmentary," born of "the naïve faith that the diaries, sometimes a mixture of both, about historian can find answers for whatever questions women who for various reasons went to sea in he chooses to ask," and marred — as it was in its merchant sailing vessels. I made a small pioneer- original form — by Lemisch's failure to car ry the ing contribution as collaborating author of tale into the actual outbreak of the American Ii omen Under Sail. There are now ten books in Revolution in something other than a breezy our own library on the subject, of which my own "Epilogue." One has to wonder: given the abbre- favourite (and many other peoples') is James W. viated maritime careers of most seamen, how Balano's edited, but still very frank, version of many of those who took to the streets during the the diary of his mother published as The Log of protests of the late 1760s, most notably those that the Skipper's Wife in 1979. She was a remarkable occurred in response to the Stamp Act, were still woman who married Fred Balano, Master and seamen when the American Revolution began in part owner of the tern schooner R. W. Hopkins, in 1775? And if the answer is not many, then what which she herself became a shareholder. motivated that next generation of seamen-revolu- The two books reviewed here are of a differ- tionaries? The work, for all its originality and ent nature. Each comprises passages based on depth, still smacks (as is so often the case with documentary material — diaries, letters — in dissertations) of an effo rt cut artificially short to which the wives of master mariners who were meet graduation deadlines. taken by their husbands to sea recorded their One wonders as well why the book has been experiences. The greater part of this material was reprinted. Lemisch's thesis is already well known of American origin and not surprisingly much of and its major parts appeared in article form and as it from New England, and there is a surprising chapters in anthologies decades ago. Above all, richness of it. In Hen Frigates — incidentally a why was the book deemed part of Garland's term I have never met before for a vessel with the "Studies in African American History and Cul2 master's wife on board — Ms. Druett drew on no ture"? This seems odd for a work, the index of less than seventy-five different sets of documents which lists only a single page entry for "Blacks." written by girls and women who accompanied In short, Garland's publication of Lemisch's their husbands or fathers to sea in many different dissertation, still "as-is" thirty2six years after its types of sailing vessels. In a comprehensive completion, is more an occasion to be lamented, appendix including "all such manuscripts known than to be celebrated. to the author" she lists a further sixty-nine poten- tial sources. Todd Gray's forthcoming compre- Michael A. Palmer hensive catalogue of maritime material held in Greenville, North Carolina British County Record Offices when it is pub- lished may show the extent of similar documenta- Joan Druett. Petticoat Whalers: Whaling Wives at tion in Britain, but I doubt that the material will Sea, 1820-1920. Auckland: Collins New Zealand, prove to be on the same scale. 1991. vi + 213 pp., photographs, illustrations Druett's women experienced most facets of (b+w, colour plates), chapter notes, appendix, life at sea under sail in the nineteenth century and select bibliography, index. US $25, cloth; ISBN the book comprises a valuable social record. She 1-86950-043-1. No rth American distributor, is frank in her discussion of the special problems Harper Collins, Scranton, PA women met with in bearing and bringing up children — conceived usually while in harbour Joan Druett. Hen Frigates: Wives of Merchant because of the sheer physical difficulty of sexual Captains Under Sail. New York: Simon & activity at sea — in their relations with their Schuster, 1998. 274 pp., photographs, illustra- husbands and other crew members and in just tions, figures, appendix, index. US $25, cloth; simply passing the time, often in endless sewing ISBN 0-684-83968-7. operations. They went to sea very often simply to be with their husbands, or because all the hus- There has been a small fashion in recent years, band's capital resources had gone into investment perhaps an offshoot of the feminist movement, for in the vessel under his command and they had no publishing books, sometimes fiction, sometimes home of their own ashore. 116 The Northern Mariner

A criticism of the book might be that Druett and prosperous po rt, mainly due to the large does not compare the women's experiences with number of American whaling ships that called those commonly met with ashore. In describing each year. The whaling grounds off the coast the hardships and tragedies they at times encoun- were popular with American whalers, and Paita tered it is well to remember that life at all levels became a preferred port of call for vessels need- ashore and afloat was incomparably rougher, ing to refresh and repair. harder and dirtier than anything conceived of by A large protected bay offered a safe anchor- most young people in the western world today. age for visiting vessels, and the irrigated farms of If the life on board nineteenth century mer- the nearby Chira valley produced a wide range of chant sailing vessels has been romanticised by agricultural produce for the visiting ships. The later generations, even more so has been the life town had enough cantinas and friendly local girls in sailing whale hunting vessels, particularly New to keep the sailors happy, and the local men were England ships. In fact, a harder, more filthy and willing to serve on whaling ships for low pay. So more dangerous and more socially isolated an many American vessels called that in 1833, the occupation is difficult to imagine. The voyages American government decided to establish a often lasted for years and since the alternative consulate in Paita and, in the 1840s, set up a was often almost perpetual grass widowhood it is hospital for sick and injured American seamen. not surprising that masters' wives so often accom- The money spent by the American whaling panied their husbands. In Petticoat Whalers — fleet provided substantial economic benefit to the again perhaps an unfortunate title which tends to town and its hinterland. Po rt and other facilities contradict the author's own definition of "whaler" developed, business flourished and workers were Druett lists seventy2six "logs , journals and attracted to the area by the high wages available. reminiscences of the whaling sisters in public However whaling has always been an ephemeral hands." Considering that compared with merchant industry with fluctuating benefits for all involved, vessels the whale ships were relatively few in including the residents of se rvice ports like Paita. number this is a remarkable total and the author The size of the American whaling fleet reached its has drawn impressively on its riches. peak in the 1840s, and then began a gradual dec- Both books are well produced and ade- line that was accelerated by political events, such quately illustrated though the quality of reproduc- as the US Civil War. By the 1860s, few American tion in Hen Frigates is not as good as that in the whalers called at Paita, and the US consular post whaling book, while Ron Druett's coloured and hospital there were closed in response. drawings in the latter are rather wooden and not Apart from the immediate economic benefits, up to standard. These minor criticisms apa rt, the the author contends that the visits by American two comprise the product of commendable and whalers "[were] a catalyst in the subsequent mod2 original historical research and valuable contribu- ernisation of northern Peru and its integration into tions to social maritime history. the export-oriented economy that characterised [its economic development in] the second half of Ann Giffard the nineteenth century." [x] He suggests that the West Boetheric, Cornwall capital accumulated by local entrepreneurs during the American whaling ph ase helped to finance the William L. Lofstrom. Paita, Outpost of Empire: next important economic development in the area, The Impact of the New England Whaling Fleet on the production and export of cotton. During the the Socioeconomic Development of Northern US Civil War, federal blockades stopped cotton Peru, 1832-1865. Mystic, CT: Mystic Seaport exports from the southern states reaching Europe, Museum, 1996. xv + 232 pp., figures, maps, illus- and this provided an opportunity for Peruvians to trations, appendix, notes, glossary, bibliography, develop irrigated cotton plantations in the Chira index. US $24.95, paper; ISBN 0-913372-74-9. valley. Cotton exports continued from northern Peru after the civil war ended, and provided Paita, located on the northern coast of Peru, is lasting economic benefits to the region. today a small and sleepy seaside town. But in the Lofstrom is probably right about the eco2 first half of the nineteenth century it was a busy nomic importance of American whaling to Paita. Book Reviews 117

Yet he cannot say exactly how important it was good, to recent decisions to diversify and embrace due to a near-total lack of statistical data for the new technologies and markets. region in this period. This has forced him to base Throughout this lengthy study, Marcil main- his argument on estimates in American consular tains the narrative pace by providing interesting reports, plus a few figures in published accounts biographical information on a wide range of by visiting foreign travellers. individuals from ownership, m anagement, and, on The book will probably appeal most to whal- occasion, down to the shop and yard levels. The ing historians for its detailed description of Paita author discusses the evolution of the various during the period concerned. There are some yards, family connections, variety of vessel types superb illustrations of the town in 1837 and a built by Davie, changes in technology, crises, useful appendix lists American whalers and mer- triumphs and failures, and family tragedies that chant ships calling there between 1832 and 1865. make up the history of Davie. Marcil also pro- vides ample evidence of the emergence of a Mark Howard corporate culture, through the 1950s at least, Melbourne, Australia embraced by Davie employees. This culture emanated from early Davie family members who Eileen Reid Marcil. Tall Ships and Tankers: The focused on leadership, community, mutual res- History of the Davie Shipbuilders. Toronto: pect, work ethic, and fairness. While by no means McClelland & Stewart, 1997. xi + 604 pp., illus2 immune from labour disputes, it appears that trations, photographs, figures, maps, appendices, Davie avoided many of the more bitter battles notes, bibliography, glossary, indices. $45, cloth; associated with shipbuilding and the maritime ISBN 0-7710-5666-4. trades. Marcil touches on the interconnection of politics, economics, and personalities associated The history of Canadian shipbuilding, a broad with the Davie corporate history but does not and fascinating topic, is indebted to Eileen Marcil pursue the details of city, provincial, and national for her work on nineteenth-century wooden ship- politics as they influenced Davie corporate life. building at Quebec, The Charley2man (1995). Tall Ships and Tankers is generously illus- With Tall Ships and Tankers, she has made trated with photographs of vessels, shipyards and another major contribution to the subject. The shipyard scenes, employees as well as vessel author was asked by Davie Shipbuilding to write drawings. Appendices include the Davie family a history intended for the Davie employees, past genealogy, lists of shipyard and union presidents, and present, and their families. Marcil complied, and a twenty-four2page yard list of vessels built writing a company history spanning the years by Davie that documents the impressive range of 1811-1996. Yet her study goes well beyond our vessels built by the company, both commercial usual notion of a "company" history. and military. The footnotes and especially the The book is organized chronologically into bibliography should encourage further research twenty-five chapters, many of which (especially into many aspects of Davie's history only briefly those dealing with the nineteenth century) focus discussed in this survey. A brief glossary of on a key individual or Davie family member and shipbuilding terms is also included. his or her role in the development of the com2 As a survey of almost two centuries of com2 pany. This approach works well and is faithful to pany history, Tall Ships and Tankers is an un- the request to write for the employees and their qualified success. Yet, as with any broad treat- families, many of whom had several generations ment, readers may wish that Marcil had written work in the Davie yards. Marcil provides essen- several other books on topics such as labour tial details of the major turning points in the relations, technology transfer, material culture in company's history from an early (1820s) decision the maritime trades, conflict of culture and lan2 to engage in ship repair work, to Davie's long guage, government's role in the economy, among relationship with Canada Steamship Lines, to others. Let us hope that other historians will Takis Veliotis' emphasis on developing the expand on the many rich topics only briefly General Engineering Division in the 1960s even discussed by Marcil. Hers is a significant con2 though the company's shipbuilding business was tribution to the literature of Canadian shipbuild2 118 The Northern Mariner

ing and I strongly recommend it to historians study emphasizes the big issues: the power of interested in corporate, urban, and maritime proceeding in rem rather than in personam, history and to libraries, archives, and museums in permitting the arrest of the vessel as security for these fields. the libellants' (plaintiffs') claims; speedy sum- mary trial on written evidence; joinder (consoli- Robert W. Graham dation) of seamen's actions and their preferred Bowling Green, Ohio claims on the proceeds of sale of the ship's assets. Obvious gaps in these procedures were the David R. Owen and Michael C. Tolley. Courts of inability of the parties to testify in person and the Admiralty in Colonial America: The Maryland absence of ajury. Both reflected admiralty's wish Experience, 163421776. Durham, NC: Carolina to facilitate commerce. Critics of imperial policy Academic Press, 1995. xxxiii + 421 pp., illustra- on the eve of the American Revolution argued tions, tables, appendices, bibliographical essay, that these denied colonists their rights as free- index. US $45, cloth; ISBN 0-89089-856-1. born Englishmen. Yet the authors argue convinc2 ingly that such criticisms were really aimed at Careful scholarship bristling with enthusiasm and London's revenue raising policies especially after set within a comparative framework is an irresist- 1763. That admiralty in Mary land, and in other ible mix. Accompanied by a full bibliographical colonies, had proved popular and efficient was apparatus, this study is distinguished by a them- evident in the decision to perpetuate the jurisdic2 atic approach and by invaluable appendices that tion and practice of the pre-war admiralty cou rts summarize the almost 150 admiralty cases from in the Constitution and in the Judiciary Act of Mary land extant in US and English archives. 1789. The framers did add the options of viva Novices will find this an informative intro- voce testimony and a jury. But in fact, these had duction to the historical evolution of admiralty been pre-war features of admiralty practice in jurisdiction and practice in the Americas. The Maryland. Courts of vice admiralty, established in more experienced may learn new things from the 1694, had not enjoyed an exclusive jurisdiction. careful distinctions drawn here: for example For half a century the governor in council, and between the origins and development of vice- the common law courts, the Provincial and that of admiralty's jurisdiction in instance cases (in Oyer and Terminer, had adjudicated maritime Mary land, mostly seamen's wages and charter causes, with or without a ju ry . Accordingly, we parties) as separate from that over prize (captured are reminded that to understand the law, we must enemy ships in war), which was assumed at an see it in its historical context. early stage and confirmed by imperial statute in Among the strengths of this study is the care 1707. Both are distinct from the colonial cou rts' with which it clarifies the issue of what law was unique jurisdiction in trade (the Navigation Acts received in Mary land. First and notably, the from 1696), and from cou rts of Oyer and Termi- colonists had a wider jurisdiction in admiralty ner hearing charges of piracy upon which vice than did England itself. The restrictions placed by admirals sat (1700), and from admiralty sessions parliament on the territorial and substantive reach which heard criminal charges back in England. of English admiralty in the late fourteenth century Concerning practice, the authors are sure predated the arrival of English settlers in America guides to admiralty's sometimes arcane manifes- and were of no force. Secondly, the common law tations of nomenclature, forms of action, court courts in Mary land had their own way to make, procedures and forums for appeal. Readers may whether against the Proprietor or London, and felt occasionally suspect that distinctions do not no compulsion as had the English common law always signal differences, for instance whether cou rts, to restrict admiralty's jurisdiction. In vice-admiralty courts were established by the addition the variety of cou rts — common law, governor acting under his m andate from the High civil, and occasional hybrid mixtures of the two Court of Admiralty in London (which gave no — encouraged forum shopping and pragmatic jurisdiction in prize) or under his instructions as practice. Yet another feature distinguished colo- governor (which did); or whether appeals lay to nial from English admiralty. There were no the Privy Council or to the HCA. However, this Mary land practitioners trained in the tradition of Book Reviews 119 the civilian lawyers of Doctors' Commons (sepa- people and groups and from an appreciation of rate from the Inns of Court and the common law the broad social and cultural context in which this courts at Westminister). The absence of ecclesias2 society functioned. tical courts in the Thirteen Colonies (admiralty in Watkin Tench, a captain in the marines, was England falling, with priestly discipline and in his late 20s when he arrived in Botany Bay in probate, under their jurisdiction), may have 1788, a member of the famous First Fleet. Tench offered wider scope to local lawyers. In any case, was very much a man of his age. He entered the they proved capable practitioners of admiralty marines when sixteen and was promptly dis- whatever the forum or level of cou rt. patched to North America to battle against the Admiralty in Maryland was responsive to upstart colonies, then engaged in rebellion against local needs. It worked, and its place in American the British Crown. Several years after the Ameri- jurisprudence then and now attests to the continu- can Revolution ended, and reduced to half pay, he ities of both jurisdiction and practice. Whatever applied for a spot on the fleet heading to Austra- the validity of Horowitz's contention in The lia. He departed for Australia in 1787 and re- Transformation of American Law (1977), that mained in the new colony until 1792. His military post-revolutionary America was distinguished by service continued after his return and included the transformation of the common law to meet the distinguished action during war with France in needs of an expanding commercial and entrepre- 1793-1793. Tench died in 1833. neurial economy, there were no fundamental That Watkin Tench remains a notable figure changes in admiralty. This was not surprising. For in early Australian history is due primarily to the centuries admiralty's jurisdiction, practice and publication of two small books, A Narrative of evidentiary norms had promoted economic and the Expedition to Botany Bay (published in 1789) commercial efficiency. In seeking to achieve a and A Complete Account of the Settlement at Port broad and uniform jurisdiction in the nineteenth Jackson (1793). Much excitement, and no small century, American common law embarked on a amount of worry, attended the dispatch of the voyage which admiralty had already made. First Fleet to Australia. Relatives of the trans- ported criminals — many of them incarcerated for Christopher English minor crimes — anxiously awaited news from the St. John's, Newfoundland distant land. Government officials and business people wished to learn of the prospects for settle- Watkin Tench; Tim Flannery (ed. & intro.). 1788; ment and development in Australia. And the geo- Comprising A Narrative of the Expedition to graphically and culturally curious — a large and Botany Bay and A Complete Account of the active group in the eighteenth and nineteenth Settlement at Port Jackson. Melbourne: Text centuries — were desperate for word about this Publishing, 1996. map, illustrations, table. AUS exotic colony, its mysterious wildlife and its $16.95, paper; ISBN 1-875847-27-8. unique indigenous population. Publishers were therefore anxious to rush first-hand accounts of The early and troubled history of Australia holds the Botany Bay experience into print, knowing great fascination. From the dramatic explorations that a large and enthusiastic audience awaited. of James Cook to the first European encounters The editor wisely lets Tench speak for with the Aborigines, from the convoluted Old himself. 1788 includes a brief introduction and World imaginings of lost continents to the harsh the complete text of Tench's two small books. realities of convict settlements, the initial Euro2 The material is annotated, with brief and helpful pean forays to the South Pacific continent have asides that explain otherwise obscure references shaped the identity and nationalism of Australia (the editor explains that 1788 is not intended to and, seemingly, have forever fixed an image of supplant a more extensively annotated edition of this far-flung outpost of the British Empire in the Tench's writings, published by L.F. Fitzhardinge eyes of the world. Australia's early history bene- in 1961). A map from Tench's second book is fits, in particular, from a powerful combination of reproduced but is unclear and difficult to read. the individual and the general, from an under2 The introduction is a model of brevity and con2 standing of the role and perspectives of specific ciseness, with a short overview of the marine's 120 The Northern Mariner life and career (little is known of Tench before or Academy have long been a convenient way to after his expedition to Australia and few personal keep abreast of new work. This volume brings records survive) and a short guide to the main together twenty-three of the more than fifty themes of the two publications. Not surprisingly, papers given at the 1991 Symposium. My most given the primary granted Aborigine2newcomer general observation on the collection is that the relations in modern Australia, Flannery describes essays as a group reflect both the strengths and Tench's extensive relationships with the indige2 weaknesses of current naval history in the nous people and suggests how Tench's observa- Canadian-American academic world. The need tions reveal the complexity, violence and misun2 for spatial qualifier reflects the fact that sixteen of derstanding that characterized cultural encounter the papers were written by individuals currently in the early years of British settlement. working in the United States, three by scholars This is not a book about Tench's maritime working in Canada, and only four by historians adventurers, and the voyage to Australia is given working outside those two nations (significantly, but a few, undramatic pages. The almost perfunc- those written by non-North Americans are among tory account of the voyage, which includes the weakest in the book). In terms of subject traveler's comments on the Canary Islands and matter, the spatial spread is slightly less concen- "the Brazils," masks the richness of what follows. trated: twelve of the essays focus primarily on the The remainder of the first book, A Narrative, and United States; four on Britain; and seven on the the second volume, A Complete Account, offer rest of the world (including one on Canada). detailed descriptions of the tenuous first British One of the strengths of naval history as it is settlements in Australia. Watkin Tench was a written today is the ability of practitioners to tell creation of his time, and his language and des- the human side of the story; several of the papers criptions carry the weight of British assumptions reflect this. In "John Paul Jones and the Cam- and the misunderstandings inherent in the adjust- paign of the Liman," James Bradford has un- ments to a new land. But his acute and humane earthed new sources that allow him to reinterpret narrative provides a remarkable window on the Jones' Russian campaigns, adding new dimen- formative stages of Australian society. His books sions to Jones' persona in the process. Clark were intended to explain Australia to people Reynolds does the same in his piece on "Carl living thousands of miles away. Quite deliber- Vinson, Admiral John H. Towers, and the Cre- ately he offered himself as the eyes of the British ation of the Two2Ocean Navy," though readers and provided descriptions and explanations that interested in Towers might well want to consult answered their most pressing questions. As an his Admiral John H. Towers: The Struggle for account of ocean travel to the South Pacific, 1788 Naval Air Supremacy (Annapolis, 1991). has limited value; as a window on early British Another of the field's strengths is the ability settlement in Australia, this book, assembled and to link strategy and tactics. At its most myopic, of introduced by Tim Flannery, is excellent. course, this can also be a weakness, but Joseph A. Moretz's essay on "Liddell Hart and Naval War- Ken Coates fare: The Missing Dimension" is an example of Saint John, New Brunswick this sort of thing done well. Moretz argues con- vincingly that while Liddell Ha rt's ideas on Douglas C. Meister, Sharon Pfeiffer and Brian strategy were generally sound, he was a techno2 VanDeMark (eds.); Jack Sweetman (ed.-in-chief). logical illiterate. His failure to grasp either the New Interpretations in Naval History: Selected potentials or weaknesses of technology weakened Papers from the Tenth Naval History Symposium. an otherwise brilliant set of principles. Annapolis: Naval Institute Press, 1993. xix + 418 Fortunately, few of the essays reflect one of pp., figures. US $35, Cdn $48.95, cloth; ISBN I2 the real weaknesses of naval history: a lack of 55750278221. Canadian distributor, Vanwell concern for the larger context. Two that do, Publishing, St. Catharines, ON. however, are Jeffrey G. Barlow's "The U.S. Navy's Fight against the Kamikazes" and Elbert The publications of the various Naval History B. Smith's "Men against the Sea: The Loss of the Symposia held every two years at the US Naval USS Warrington." Since I like much of Barlow's Book Reviews 121 work, I was somewhat surprised to read an essay battle. Ambiguity characterized 50-gun ships that treated the US Navy as though it were uncon- another way. For though they became too small to nected to a larger society. Smith's study (like fight in the line, they lacked the manoeuvrability Paolo Coletta's on "Dirigibles in the U.S. Navy") and speed of frigates. Finally, there is ambiguity is pure antiquarianism, telling us nothing signifi- in this book's title for it really concerns the Royal cant about either the navy or American society. Navy's warships known as fourth rates which Perhaps the most serious criticism levelled rarely mounted fifty guns. at naval history is its predilection to ignore larger Rif Winfield has produced a valuable and issues that animate debate in the wider historical stimulating study of this often ignored class of profession. Certainly a number of the essays in warships from the Age of Sail. Far from being a this book could be accused of this flaw. But what sort of freak or mutation lacking any clear pur2 is especially encouraging is that several exem- pose, he contends that the 50-gun ship or fourth plify the approach practitioners must take if they rate occupied a special place in the evolution of are to improve their standing among historians. wooden warships and contributed to the evolution One is Paul C. Forage's impressive examination of both the battleship and the frigate. Whether he of "The Foundations of Chinese Naval Suprem- presents a convincing case is perhaps less impor- acy in the Twelfth Century," which situates tant than the bright light that he has cast on the Chinese technological superiority in the context development of this interesting type of warship. of the society. Another is Mark Grimsley's "The Winfield traces the origins of the 50-gun ship Pirate and the State: Hen ry Morgan and Irregular to the frigates of the Commonwealth period. Ori- Naval Warfare in the Early Modern World," ginally possessed of a single, low2placed gundeck which contrasts piratical behaviour with the without a forecastle, the quarterdecks of these policy goals of the British state. And a third is frigates were extended forward to turn them into D'Ann Campbell's "Fighting with the Navy: The two-decked vessels. They mounted forty guns, WAVEs in World War II," which continues her but some built with a broader beam carried forty- lengthy string of publications on gender in the four guns and constituted a separate class of modern US Navy. fourth rates that came to car ry 24-pdrs on their While space precludes a discussion of all the gundeck and lighter guns above. Few new ships papers, on balance this is an encouraging collec- were built during the Restoration, but all had their tion. If most of the essays are fairly traditional ordnance increased. By 1688 they mounted fi fty- naval history, some do extend their inquiries in four to sixty-four guns, and constituted the most exciting directions. I hope that future volumes numerous rate in the Royal Navy. The quarter will continue this promising trend. century of warfare after 1689 marked the high water mark of the fourth rate, and though they Lewis R. Fischer fought in the line in major fleet actions, their St. John's, Newfoundland inadequacy was soon revealed; many were lost. As naval warfare expanded overseas and French Rif Winfield (illus. John McKay). The 50-Gun guerre de course forced the navy to escort con- Ship. London: Chatham Publishing, 1997. 128 voys and cruise against privateers, the 50-gun pp., illustrations, photographs, tables, plans, ship ran into challenges that it could not well cutaway drawings, appendices, notes, index. £30, meet. Curiously the 1703 establishment of guns Cdn $69.95, cloth; ISBN 1-86176-025-6. Cana2 raised the 482gun fourth rates to fifty-four guns, dian distributor, Vanwell Publishing, St. Catha- but lightened their ordnance from 24-pdrs and 8- rines, ON. pdrs to 12- and 6-pdrs, respectively. The navy spent the next half century gradually re-gunning Ambiguity is the chief characteristic of 50-gun these ships back up to their original weight of ships. Though they possessed two complete gun metal. It seems that fourth rates really did become decks, they are usually thought to have been too strange under-gunned hybrids that were neither small to se rve as ships of the line. But during the frigate nor cruiser. Though two2decker fourth late seventeenth century they were frequently the rates remained in service until the end of the most numerous type of ship in any real line of Napoleonic Wars, they seem to have lost their 122 The Northern Mariner

purpose by the end of the War of the Austrian Denis Orde. Nelson's Mediterranean Command: Succession which ended in October 1748, not a Concerning Pride, Preferment and Prize Money. year later. [511 Bishop Auckland, Durham: Pentland Press, 1997. The text is so concerned with technical xv + 228 pp., illustrations, bibliography, index. details and dates that the trees sometimes obscure £15, cloth; ISBN 1-85821-493-9. the forest. Why the navy reduced the armament of fourth rates in 1703 and then spent the next half When I saw this book announced, and noting the century increasing it is never satisfactorily ex- name of the author, I presumed that it would be plained. The emphasis on fleet actions leads to an apologia for Admiral Sir John Orde, whose insufficient attention being paid to the numerous appearance in naval history is largely centred on demands made on fourth rates during the first two withdrawals, both in somewhat ignominious great period of Anglo-French warfare between circumstances, from the seas off Cadiz to England 1689 and 1713. This reader wishes the author had and subsequent disgrace. While this element devoted more attention to the many fourth rates certainly forms a principal part in the book, the that operated overseas in the West Indies, off the author, as befits a senior judge, and despite his coast of Africa and in the Mediterranean, attack- family connection, has delivered a much more ing enemy colonies, escorting sugar-laden mer- balanced appreciation of his ancestor's conduct, chantmen, protecting fisheries and fishing ves2 placed within the setting of the great events of the sels, and cruising against privateers and pirates. period 1798 to 1805 in which they occurred. As What combination of strength and manoeuvra- the sub-title suggests, the narrative, in attributing bility yielded maximum operational efficiency at explanations of these curious proceedings, exam- the lowest cost? Too much attention is paid to ines the personal relations between various senior ships lost and captured rather than to their func- officers, arising from the three factors therein tions as the Admiralty conceived them. The mentioned. On the way, we are told of connec- problem seems to have been that small two- tions between various distinguished Northum- decked ships provided no real alternative to brians who were prominent at the time. single-decked frigates. They could not car ry their It must be made clear, however, that the title main armament with sufficient freeboard to use it has to be taken as a whole. The book is not an in all conditions at sea. Is this why they were so account of Nelson's Mediterranean command, lightly gunned after 1703? though the main events of it are covered, but of The material is arranged in two parts of ap- the effect of Nelson's two appointments i.e. in proximately equal length. The first deals with the 1798 and in 1803 on relations between him and development of the type, the second with the his contemporaries such as Orde, St. Vincent and technical details of the ships themselves: The others including the various First Lords of the depth of detail is mind-numbing in places, but the Admiralty. On the first occasion, Nelson's selec- publishers clearly know their market. They are to tion to command the force in pursuit of Napo- be congratulated for the high quality of the illus- leon's Egyptian expedition was over the heads of trations that grace nearly every page. Ship model- both Orde and Parker, who were senior to him ers will find an added bonus in John McKay's set and felt much aggrieved. Added to some subse- of drawings of HMS Leopard (1790); plan, quent minor disputes, it led to Orde's being sent elevation, and lines (1/8 inch to 1 foot), together home by St. Vincent. Both were evidently diffi- with mast and rigging plans are located in the end cult and tactless men. St. Vincent was reproved. pocket. Perspective cutaway drawings of each Orde, when offered another command by way of deck showing the arrangement of the ship's consolation by Spencer, foolishly declined it. In internal features are in the text. This is a fine 1804, when Nelson was already in command, addition to the publisher's ShipShape series and Orde was selected to command a squadron with a mine of information for anyone seeking details the task of blockading Cadiz when Spain entered about the 50-gun ship. the war, the part of the Mediterranean station west of the Straits of Gibraltar being placed under his James Pritchard command. Now it was Nelson's turn to be un- Kingston, Ontario happy, for, he alleged, it was the most lucrative Book Reviews 123 area for prize money, and he regarded this change Robert Malcomson (ed.). Sailors of 1812: Mem- as directed against him, whereas obviously oirs and Letters of Naval Officers on Lake On2 enough, the course of events required such an tario. Youngstown, NY: Old Fo rt Niagara Asso- appointment, as Nelson was too remote. When ciation, 1997 [Fort Niagara State Park, P.O. Box the Toulon fleet appeared unexpectedly, en route 169, Youngstown, NY 14174-0169]. 96 pp., for the West Indies, Orde quite properly withdrew maps, illustrations by George Balbar. US $7.95, to the Channel Fleet, but was subsequently criti- Cdn $10.97, paper; ISBN 02941967-19-0. cised by historians. Having already asked to be relieved, he came ashore on anchoring at This is an affordable, entertaining and useful Spithead. compilation of some of the diaries, letters and The result is an interesting account without memoirs of four minor players in the War of the signs of axe-grindery which your reviewer 1812. Some of these documents can be found in had feared. While the author has evidently read print elsewhere, but in obscure places, and they widely, it is not clear how far he has used original are usually overlooked. sources, though in this period the number of Bishop James Richardson, an authentic printed documents is so great that the need for Upper Canadian hero whose notice, in the Dic- consulting originals is correspondingly less. tionary of Canadian Biography, Vol. X, makes However, it was disconcerting to find that Sir only passing and cavalier reference to his brave Julian Corbett's The Campaign of Trafalgar did and resourceful efforts as an officer in the Provin- not appear in the bibliography, as not only is that cial Marine, provides the continuity for this col- book the most thorough survey of the campaign, lection. Complementing Richardson's narrative, but Sir Julian was the first to show Sir John's which was written many years after the event, is 1805 withdrawal in a favourable light. some of the correspondence of Arthur Sinclair, a The main fault of the book is to explain too regular officer in the US Navy who constantly much in the wider world, leading to some exces- sought fame and never quite found it. He is best sively simplified accounts of say, the Seven known for a less than glorious record in the foot- Years' War, and discursive character sketches steps of Oliver Hazard Perry on Lakes Erie and which, though useful, also divert attention from Huron. Despite overwhelming naval preponder- the main thread of the story. Some avoidable ance in 1814, he lost four vessels by the exploits mistakes are made such as that Anson established of two enterprising young officers in the Royal the rating of ships in the Navy, and one notes an Navy, Miller Worsley and Richard Dobbs. More excessive number of mistaken spellings, of which importantly, he lost Mackinack to the British. "Boscowan" is perhaps the worst, while people Bob Malcomson does not refer to these are "on" ships, whose gender appears as neuter disasters in his introduction, presumably because rather than feminine. The illustrations are repro- the documents were selected to illustrate opera2 duced as well as the quality of paper allows, and tions on Lake Ontario, yet the letters he chose tell include portraits of the principal figures. The best us something of Sinclair's personality. He was which can be said of the bibliography is that there evidently a devoted family m an, delighting in the are better ways in which it could be organized to beauty of the lakes and their surroundings. Per- give references from the text. The la tter are, haps more than most of his contemporaries he however, numerous, though a few are inadequate, often complained about his lot. He corroborates such as "Letter 185, Public Records [sic] Office." Richardson's account and offers fresh insights Taken in all, the book is a useful contribution into the so-called Burlington Races of 1813. towards an understanding of two complex epi- Whether Sinclair could have done any better than sodes; useful too as indicating the undercurrents Chauncey we will never know. He certainly of high command, while it justifies the proud, believed he could, though his later performance capable but tactless Sir John Orde. belies his self confidence. Henry Kent's understated narrative about the A.W.H. Pearsall 1814 march of seamen, from Saint John, New London, England Brunswick to Kingston, Ontario in the dead of winter, is one of the most stirring accounts of 124 The Northern Mariner endurance and devotion to duty ever written. It (and the enemy's ships torched on the stocks, so first appeared in the Naval Chronicle, and Rear to speak) no such fleet engagement would have Admiral Hugh Pullen published it in the 1950s as been necessary. And had the British army assisted an "Occasional Paper" of the Maritime Museum the small British naval forces on Lake Erie, and of Nova Scotia. That version, however, is out of taken out the American squadron at Presque Isle print and difficult to find. We should be grateful (now Erie, Pennsylvania), no such battle should to Malcomson for printing the account here. have occurred. The encounter is also of interest in Almost as an appendix to these narratives is that it involved two battle-experienced command- an excerpt from the journal of Barzallai Pease of ers: Barclay on the British side and Perry on the the US Army Transportation Service. It tells us American. Their lives and experiences play an something, but not enough, about the use of ships interesting additional theme to any study of the and seamen on the lakes by the US Army, a topic Battle of Lake Erie. that deserves more attention by historians. The authors concentrate on the battle itself, Malcomson set out to add to our understand- but with conspicuous care to the surrounding and ing of operations in Lake Ontario. He uses his related questions of strategy and logistics. They sources well to provide a framework for the stress the error of American strategy: not attack- documents, providing admirable explanatory ing Montreal. In this they follow various after- notes. Would that the maps were equally informa- war views. They also have a familiarity with how tive; they could easily have replaced some of the the British and Canadian forces had carefully rather romantic illustrations. nurtured the Indian alliance. They provide, for the first time, a thorough analysis of the material W.A.B. Douglas forces of the two sides in the Battle of Lake Erie, Ottawa, Ontario pointing out the hopeless nature of the British cir2 cumstances, especially the isolated nature of David Curtis Skaggs and Gerard T. Altoff. A Barclay's command, limited as he was in suppo rt Signal Victory: The Lake Erie Campaign 18122 from Commodore Yeo on Lake Erie and from 1813. Annapolis: Naval Institute Press, 1997. x + General Rottenburg on the central, Niagara front. 244 pp., maps, tables, illustrations, appendix, Poor Barclay lost the war before he could begin notes, glossary, bibliographic essay, index. US it, though with true Nelsonian spirit. Indeed, he $34.95, Cdn $48.95, cloth; ISBN 1-55750-030-4. had to fight for he could not run away — at least Canadian distributor, Vanwell Publishing, St. one of his larger ships drew too much water to Catharines, ON. ease through the shallows of Lake St. Clair. This fine book is based on an extensive The Battle of Lake Erie, also known as the Battle knowledge of the primary sources and secondary of Put-in Bay, 1813, has long interested histori- literature of the subject. It is not likely to be ans. It was the one instance in which a British surpassed in its even-handed treatment of the fleet was captured in battle. It is also a remarkable various matters handled. True, the s tyle is mixed, episode in which "command of the sea" was as is common with jointly authored volumes, and acquired by battle, giving the victors great possi2 the momentum of the narrative and analysis bilities for campaigns on land that were not fully frequently stalls. It is a pity, too, that more illus- exploited. Fought in the continental Great Lakes trations about ships could not have been included, heartland, the episode is the more remarkable, for though there is a fine rogues' gallery. The book is virtually all war materials had to come from great heavily referenced, contains a brief bibliographi2 distances, though the ships themselves were built cal essay, and has a useful glossary of nautical locally. Similarly, officers and men had to come terms. The book therefore advances the profes- from hundreds if not thousands of miles away. If sional study of the naval War of 1812 on the this was a ship-builders' war, then it was also one Great Lakes and sets a fine model for what other in which amphibious operations played a promi- battles might reveal. We can hope that the authors nent role in follow-on campaigns. Indeed, in the might turn their attention next to Lake Ontario, run up to the 1813 battle, had amphibious opera2 where the imperial stakes were equally high if not tions been undertaken by forces of either side more so, but where no conclusive result in naval Book Reviews 125 ascendancy occurred. Perhaps they will turn to himself a vigorous and courageous officer. Lake Champlain. In my own research, on naval His cool and unflappable bearing led to a activities and amphibious waters in Lake Huron most delicate assignment, the transportation of and Georgian Bay, realization has occurred that Napoleon to St Helena and to se rve as the island's fighting such a war was a logistical nightmare for Governor for the first phase of his exile. There both sides. Skaggs and Altoff show how the Lake was a battle of wills between the two, Napoleon Erie campaign was vital to fo rtunes in the heart- insisting on imperial dignity and Cockburn land, though campaigns both terrestrial and refusing (on orders) to give him any more defer- amphibious could work around the margins of ence than was due a general. The time on St American command of the sea recently acquired. Helena was even more tense, as it was necessary to mount a discreet guard over Napoleon, without Barry Gough overly restricting his personal liberties. The fear Waterloo Ontario of rescue attempts was so great that for a time all vessels were forbidden to call at the island. Roger Morriss. Cockburn and the British Navy in Cockburn returned home in 1816, and began Transition: Admiral Sir George Cockburn 17722 an almost uninterrupted (except for a spell in the 1853. Exeter: University of Exeter Press and I 830s) career at the Admiralty, eventually becom2 Columbia: University of South Carolina Press, ing First Sea Lord, until 1846. In many ways this 1997. xiv + 338 pp., illustrations, maps, notes, is the most interesting part of the book because it bibliography, index. £35, US $39.95, cloth; ISBN deals with the crucial issues of the introduction of 0-85989-526-2 (UEP) or I-57003-253-X (USCP) steam propulsion, iron ships, engineering officers, screw propellers, and the winding down of the Until recently those interested in the early nine- beloved sailing navy. The hoary view that the teenth-century Royal Navy depended on C.J. Admiralty was too reactionary to adopt the new Bartlett's Great Britain and Sea Power, 1815253 technologies was demolished years ago by Bart- and a scattering of joumal articles. This neglected lett: with over a hundred wooden line of battle period has experienced a scholarly renaissance of sailing ships, and over three hundred similar late, primarily in the works of Andrew Lambe rt frigates, a huge advantage in skilled seamen, and and David Brown, and we may now add Roger no apparent rivals, only a complete idiot would Morriss to that list. His subject, Admiral Sir have initiated a technological revolution in war2 George Cockbum, was an influential figure in this ships. However, as Morriss demonstrates, admin- era but he had no serious modern study until now. istrators like Cockburn kept a close eye on the Morriss contends that Cockbum's reputation new developments, formed high-powered com- as a blinkered reactionary, resistant to technical mittees to investigate changes, authorized experi- innovation during his years as First Naval Lord, mental craft to test concepts, carried out numer- was the product of political hostility. As a Tory , ous experiments with iron construction and shell Cockburn suffered greatly from later historians' guns, and were prepared to move ahead quickly Whig sympathies. Morriss maintains that when foreign competition made delay too risky. Cockburn was as forward2looking as could be Ultimately, the Royal Navy did adopt steam, iron expected in an era of rapid technological develop- construction and shell guns, and it was by no ments, and was responsible for many crucial means a last2minute panic response by frightened breakthroughs in the transition to a steam navy. elderly admirals which produced this transition. He served under Nelson in the Mediterranean Cockburn, as First Sea Lord, naturally exercised in his early career, rising rapidly from 8th Lieu- some due caution in rushing into new schemes, tenant in 1793 to senior Captain in Nelson's partly because the Admiralty was often deluged squadron by 1795. Further meritorious serv ice by proposals, many of the crackpot variety. In an followed, including the capture of Ma rtinique, a age of massive cuts to naval budgets after the spell in India, and the Walcheren expedition. He wars one had to choose the experimental projects is most remembered for his se rv ice in the War of with care. Cockburn's responsible management of 1812, where he was a driving force in the Chesa- slim resources, as well as the hostility of Whig peake Bay operations under Cochrane, proving historians and commentators, produced the for- 126 The Northern Mariner mer unflattering picture. In some ways he was his the most part, I have relied on the research and own worst enemy, because he disdained to defend writings of others. In the text and in the notes, I himself against attacks in print, and seems not to have tried to acknowledge the debt I owe to those have left much in his papers, so that the official who have sailed these seas before, and if I have records are almost all Morriss has to work on. overlooked any, it is not by intention." This is all This is a very valuable book, and Cockburn well and good. However, the book appears to do will not likely need another biographer in our little beyond compiling the works of others. No lifetimes. Morriss has tried to place Cockburn original research appears to have been undertaken inside broader national history — a growing trend for this work. Most of the material is therefore in naval writing — and to a large extent he suc- standard fare; more attention to the personalities ceeds. Certainly the navy's place in the politics of involved and thinking behind the scenes would the day is made very clear. Morriss has a very have enhanced the value of the work consider2 firm knowledge of all the administrative practices ably. As it is, the book is probably best suited for of the day, and explains how things were decided first2year students of naval or maritime history. and implemented without tedious detail. There are The book itself is arranged in eleven chap- few errors, though Map 6 on the War of 1812 will ters, with the first half of the book devoted rough- surprise: Labrador is in New Brunswick, New- ly to the period from the conception of the US foundland has drifted into Cape Breton, Quebec Navy to the beginning of World War I. A few City has shifted to Montreal, and Montreal is points of particular historical interest appear early nicely settled in Ontario, but they are close in the book, such as the attention given to the enough to be almost twin cities, and the State of period between the War of 1812 and the Civil West Virginia has miraculously appeared fifty War, an era little covered by historians to date. years early. On page 185 it should be noted the The various wars with Mexico are especially repeal of the Test and Corporation Acts in 1828 worthy of note. Also of interest is the account of opened public employment for Catholics as well the duel involving naval heroes Stephen Decatur as non-Anglican Protestants, and I am not sure it and James Barron in 1820. Due to various in- is right to refer to Puseyites (who were somewhat trigues, both "seconds" at the duel had a vested to the right of the Jesuits) as "nonconformists." interest in seeing both parties dead. Both duelists These are small flaws in a very solid book, how- were gravely wounded; Decatur later dying of his ever, and there is no hesitation in recommending injury. The ensuing public outcry led to the pro- it to anyone as an excellent source for the Royal hibition of dueling between senior officers, Navy in the Cockburn years. though it was not banned outright until 1857. Most of the book appears little changed from Paul Webb the first edition published in 1977. Indeed, the London, Ontario quotation by Admiral Sergei Gorshkov, then commander of the Soviet fleet, in the final sen- Nathan Miller. The US. Navy: A History. 3rd ed.; tence of the tenth chapter sounds anachronistic: Annapolis: Naval Institute Press, 1997. 324 pp., "Sooner or later, the United States will have to notes. US $22.95, Cdn $31.95, paper; ISBN 1- understand it no longer has mastery of the seas." 55750-595-0. Canadian distributor, Vanwell The final chapter appears to have been reworked Publishing, St. Catharines, ON. twice for the second and third editions. The main justification for this third edition appears to be the This survey history of the US Navy, first written desire to include treatment of two of the US in 1977, has now been revised for the second time military's most traumatic events in the past by its venerable author, Nathan Miller. The only twenty years — the suicide bombing of the 24th conceivable reason for releasing the book in its Marine Amphibious Unit in Beirut in 1983 and third incarnation is for use as a textbook. Its the Gulf War of 199021991. purpose, states Miller in his Preface, "is to pro2 It is a shame that the extensive bibliography vide the present generation with the story of the is buried within a twenty-seven2page section of navy, its people and the role they played in the notes, since a separate bibliography is an invalu- creation and protection of the United States. For able tool for those wishing to pursue further Book Reviews 127

research. It also seems a shame that no biographi- view is that these generally accepted interpreta- cal sketch of the author is included; all we can tions are, in a word, "wrong." [4] learn from the book is that Miller is the author of This contention is bound to be controversial, ten other works to date, mostly concerned with but he has a point. We are reminded that Mahan American historical figures. Serious students of did not undertake the Influence of Sea Power nautical history will recognize his name. For series as a strategist, but as an historian concerned readers not so familiar with him, a brief biogra- for the declining professionalism of the American phy would have been welcome. navy. He believed that constant and rapid me- Within these limitations, this remains a chanical innovation had upset planning and useful book for students or anyone interested in a education to the detriment of command confi- general history of the US Navy. dence and authority. "He feared the consequences of a navy led by indecisive men, bred by bureau- David J. Shirlaw cratic routine ... to follow rules or act politically." North Vancouver, British Columbia [24] That timeless insight, and others, Sumida argues, were lost when Mahan's publisher in2 Jon Tetsuro Sumida. Inventing Grand Strategy sisted upon the late addition to his first major and Teaching Command: The Classic Works of book of an introductory chapter on "The Elements Alfred Thayer Mahan Reconsidered. Baltimore: of Sea Power." This blatant marketing ploy, done Johns Hopkins Universi ty Press and Washington, solely to capitalize on the growing debate in the DC: The Woodrow Wilson Press, 1997. xix + 164 United States over the future of naval construc2 pp., bibliography, analytical index, general index. tion, has defined our perception of Mahan's US $24.95, cloth; ISBN 0-8018-5800-3. writing ever since. And what of that writing? Sumida examines We have heard the litanies before: "the Army has Mahan's "Professional Purpose, Geopolitical Clausewitz, the Navy has Mahan"; each is "often Vision, and Historical Technique," then his "Poli2 quoted, rarely understood." The credibility of tical, Political-Economic, and Governmental Alfred Thayer Mahan would seem to be in tatters Argument" and "Strategic and Professional Argu- as the West celebrates victory in the Cold War by ment," exposing how they evolved over his means other than the decisive naval battle which career. Important shifts in Mahanian thought are he espoused. But Jon Sumida has produced a revealed, not as the unimportant inconsistencies study which advocates the continuing relevance or contradictions contended by others, but rather of the American naval strategist. Comparing as nuances on his central theme of adaptability as naval command to the arts of musical perfor2 the essence of naval command. Conscious of the mance and of zen enlightenment, Sumida seeks tendency of doctrine to interfere with the exercise nothing less than the rehabilitation of Mahan for of intelligent judgement, Mahan strove to convey the post2modern reader. a sound understanding of core principles of naval There are few better qualified to undertake warfare — not a slavish adherence to them. The this task. Sumida is a distinguished historian of contemplation of contradictory lines of thought — the Royal Navy in the period 188921914. These as in musical performance or zen meditation — were precisely the years when Mahan was pro- are signs not of inconsistency, but of complexity. ducing his famous studies of the influence of sea Sumida concludes that, while Mahan's works power upon history and other lesser works, which may be dated or are incomplete in their analysis, in turn would influence the course of naval devel- they remain "a source of provocative methodolog- opment for the next century. Virtually every ical suggestion and a worthy subject of serious subsequent analysis of Mahan — not to mention philosophical discussion." [116] To prove the any pretender to Britain's legacy of command of point, he ends with the tantalizing proposition the seas — has invoked the universal truths as- that the rise of US naval mastery, conventionally cribed to him: that naval supremacy was the interpreted as having been at the expense of that prerequisite to national greatness, and that the of Britain, reveals a continuum of Great Power direction of naval operations according to certain cooperative action when seen through the strategic principles resulted in victory. Sumida's Mahanian concept of a transnational conso rtium. 128 The Northern Mariner

Along the way, we are treated to equally refresh- drew and tabulated every warship afloat for his ing reviews of Mahan's thoughts on the education annual All the World's Fighting Ships in 1897. of officers, ship design, naval administration, and He had found a formula to exploit the "New the complexity of sea warfare — all subjects of Navalism" of the 1890s, and the contemporary continuing interest to sea officers. mania for technical detail. The linked "Naval War This is an important book. If only in making Game" was developed with the assistance of the preeminent American naval historian-strate- leading British officers, including Hen ry May and gist relevant for the coming century, Sumida has Prince Louis of Battenberg. accomplished his purpose. For those who think Jane moved to Portsmouth, where he devel- they knew Mahan, this volume is a useful rejoin2 oped a unique rapport with the Royal Navy, and der. Far from resolving the debate over Mahan some of the foreign navies that frequented the and his influence on history, it is likely to renew harbour. He wrote The Imperial Russian Navy in it. And if it encourages a new generation of naval 1898, after a Russian Grand Duke had invited practitioners to give Mahan a read, all the better. him to tour ships and bases in the Black Sea and Baltic. This success led to a Japanese invitation to Richard H. Gimblett write a similar study. While the Russo-Japanese Blackburn Hamlet, Ontario war of 190425 helped sales, it divided his loyal- ties. Ultimately his concern with the "yellow- Richard Brooks. Fred T Jane: An Eccentric peril," with Chinese manpower mobilised and led Visionary. Coulsdon, Surrey: Jane's Information by Japan, led him to argue that Russia was "fight- Group, 1997. xii + 260 pp., illustrated, bibliogra- ing Europe's battle." phy, index. £26, cloth; ISBN 02170621751-8. Despite his financial success and interna2 tional reputation, Jane had no quantifiable influ2 Fred T. Jane; (intro. Anthony Preston). The ence on British naval policy. Brooks suggests this British Battle-Fleet. Its Inception and Growth reflected class prejudice, although he admits that throughout the Centuries. London, 1912; the serv ice did not take any civilians seriously. "Conway Classics" reprint; London: Conway More likely it was Jane's refusal to fall in with Maritime Press, 1997. xvi + 406 pp., photoplates the cycle of panic and alarm that propelled naval (b+w, colour), figures, maps, tables, index. £15, policy through the Edwardian era. He had no time cloth; ISBN 0-85177-723-6. Canadian distributor, for the bleatings of the Navy League, and al- Vanwell Publishing, St. Catharines, ON. though generally supportive of Fisher, was al- ways prepared to criticise. Jane shared many of Fred T. Jane, who gave his name to the famous Fisher's enthusiasms, notably speed, anticipating reference book, has long required a biography. the battle-cruiser in 1902. Despite this he pre- Richard Brooks' study places him into context, as ferred Lord Charles Beresford, an aristocrat with a leading naval journalist of his day. a common touch, to the secretive Fisher. In his Born in 1865, Jane spent his early life in most significant book, Heresies of Seapower Exeter, where he learned to draw. Moving to (1906), Jane attacked the prevailing Mahanian London in 1885 he worked as an illustrator; by "blue2water" orthodoxy as over-complex and 1890 he was reporting on naval manoeuvres. unduly historical. His interest in the conditions on Both his art and his writing reflected boundless the lower deck developed into the Social Darwin- enthusiasm, initially for torpedo craft, but ulti2 ist concept of "Fitness-to2Win." Once again there mately for all aspects of naval life. In 1895 he were ideas to spare, but few of them were suffi- wrote Blake of the 'Rattlesnake' a future-war ciently worked through to satisfy an audience pre2 book based on real officers and ships. It set a disposed to criticise. The most significant theme, pattern. Jane had a powerful imagination; there the critical importance of bases in steam age were more ideas in any one of his novels than half naval warfare, reflected nineteenth-century expe- a dozen books by other authors, but he rarely rience, and predicted the twentieth century better developed them, and as Brooks observes, "the than any other naval strategic thinker of the era. whole does not live up to the promise of strong As Brooks demonstrates, the failure to synthesise beginning." After dabbling in science fiction Jane his thought was a reflection of the numerous calls Book Reviews 129 on his time; he continued to edit Fighting Ships, nent place. Jane approved of the battle-cruiser, began writing a weekly newspaper column, took and recognised the trend towards smaller numbers up motoring (using an eight2litre Mercedes racing of larger and faster capital ships, used in tactically car!), founded All the World's Airships, stood for flexible units, supported by flotilla craft. Despite Parliament and joined the Scout Movement. his familiarity with the "real" navy he repeated His 1912 study, The British Battlefleet , Fisher's claims about speed and armour, notably reprinted in 1915 and reproduced, without W.L. the mythical 31.7 knots achieved by Lion: per2 Wylie's colour illustrations, in 1990, has now haps he understood the deterrent value of lies! appeared with the colour plates. Although it was Then he claimed that during the 1911 Agadir Jane's last book, it was not his best. He hoped his Crisis there was not enough coal for the Navy to basic theme, how ship design reflected the naval go to war, a situation rectified by 1912. Jane usage, would remove the "poetry" from naval concluded with the "Fitness-to-Win" concept of history. He used the example of Sir Robe rt 1906. The key to success was having the right Seppings' inspection of the shattered bow of the ships for the job, and crews welded together by Victory after Trafalgar, arguing that the round hard discipline. The last was of such pre-eminent bow was a response to Nelson's tactical revolu- importance that it should give all reformers pause tion. Having adopted an original approach to the before they altered any aspect of the se rvice. subject, Jane failed to develop this argument. The While The British Battlefleet is not Jane's book is a conflation of half-read history, technical best work — the Russian book is more useful, summaries of ships, many of which he did not while Heresies has lasting merit — there is little understand, and a catalogue of errors. However, question that it has been the most influential. he did stress that the prime function of British Later writers, notably Oscar Parkes, repeated his naval power had always been deterrence, citing opinions, re2used his drawings and ensured that Raleigh, and attributing the peace of the last two his errors were perpetuated. Jane's attempt to decades to the fleet built by Sir William White. write a naval history that examined the inter2 Despite a useful reading list, he had not mastered relationship between tactics, strategy and ship the subject, confusing Lord Hood first with Lord design was ambitious, but badly delivered. Jane Howe, and then with his brother Lord Bridport. was too busy to do the job properly. By 1912 Once he reached the technical developments and Jane's currency as a journalist was declining. operations of the ironclad era, Jane's grasp im- Increasingly aware that modern war would not proved. He recognised the impo rtance of bases conform to the simplistic expectations of the and offensive operations on the li ttoral, themes nation, and most of the navy, he hoped that the outlined in Heresies, but did not develop their Arms Race would satisfy its real object, deterring tactical or technical implications. He relied too conflict. He was surprised when war broke out in heavily on a few texts — H.W. Wilson, Nathaniel 1914, probably because the conflict had nothing Barnaby and in particular Edward Reed. The to do with Anglo-German issues. Although the period after 1882 is warped by hero-worship of war revived his journalistic career his message Beresford. His discussion of the torpedo gunboat was too darkly realistic for an audience that exploited personal experience of the 1891 exer- expected a new Trafalgar or Tsushima. He spent cises to demonstrate their role in blockading much of his time defending the Admiralty, and French torpedo boat bases. He also recognised explaining that in apparently doing nothing the that changing the naval enemy from France to navy was winning the war. It was a difficult Germany forced a complete redesign of contem- message to get across, and in his effo rts he porary destroyers. His technical interests ensured pushed himself too hard, enduring long drives in that he was less critical of Fisher than other an open car that brought on influenza and then Conservative naval writers. However, he linked heart failure. He died in March 1916, aged 50. the Dreadnought with Cuniberti's ideas, pub- A man of astonishing energy, lively humour lished in Fighting Ships, when Fisher's concept and boundless enthusiasm, Jane had a talent for was actually quite different. Like Fisher he be- taking pains with details, but rarely the time to lieved the torpedo had doomed linear tactics, and think through the ideas that his original mind gave aircraft, airships and submarines a promi- generated. Brooks' biography will be required 130 The Northern Mariner reading for those interested in Jane, and the years trated. Every ship described, whether it never got between the Naval Defence Act and the Battle of off the drawing board or was altered several Jutland. Jane deserves to be remembered as an times, has at least one scaled lines drawing. Those unusual, original journalist with the talent to spot classes of ships that survived the 1922 Washing- a gap in the market, the ability to fill it, and the ton Treaty frequently have a lines drawing for foresight to ensure that his annuals survived his each modernization. The photographs are excel- untimely death. lent. Many are full and even double page spreads. Features, such as torpedo bulges, pagoda s tyle Andrew Lambert bridges, and tripod and lattice masts are all clearly London, England illustrated. Each design is accompanied with a standard format table enumerating displacement, Ian Sturton (ed.). All the World's Battleships: dimensions, machinery, armour, armament, and 1906 to the Present. London: Conway Maritime complement. If an order for construction was Press, 1997. 190 pp., photographs, figures, tables, placed, then a second table listing each ship by index. £15, cloth; ISBN 0-85177-691-4. Canadian name provides the builder, dates laid down, distributor, Vanwell Publishing, St. Catharines, launched and completed, and the "fate." This ON. book fills a niche. Like a Jane's, it brings to2 gether all the countries that had Dreadnought2 type This is a compact inexpensive reference book ships. But it expands on Jane's with the inclusion overflowing with facts and details of all the of proposed designs. This adds an important Dreadnought2type ships of fifteen countries, dimension to discussion of naval arms races and including the Netherlands that planned but never national security concerns. A brief description of built a Dreadnought. The national sections, writ- the life and/or fate of each class offers an histori- ten by such scholars as Norman Friedman (United cal component missing from the annuals. States, Japan 1906-22) and Antony Preston, The book also provides a basis for commen2 (Great Britain), are arranged alphabetically. tary. The tabular entries under "fate" emphasizes Within these chapters, each design and class is how transitory these behemoths were. A brief discussed separately in chronological order. sixteen years spanned the commissioning of HMS A book such as this cannot be all things for Dreadnought to the Washington limitation treaty. all people, and for economy and space, sacrifices The German fleet did not su rvive, and many of must be made. The writing throughout is clipped, the other ships were "BU." The increased vulnera- sometimes at the expense of clarity. Re2reading to bility to submarine and air attack of those that catch the meaning is occasionally necessary. survived made them expensive assets to use in Abbreviations abound. "BU" is self-evident World War II. The photographs also suggest ("broken up") but the description of German ideas. The World War I photographs of the Kaiser-class main mountings as DrhLC/1909 British and German ships show a noticeably escaped this reviewer. To say that it was similar lower standard of ship's husbandry in the German to C/1909 does not help. The lack of a glossary to fleet. As most of the photographs are dated, and explain these abbreviations and the widespread this observation is based on pictures of 1917 and use of technical terms without explanation, means 1918, can they be used as evidence of deteriorat- that this is a book for the expert and the buff. ing conditions? The fate of all these ships, easily There is little analysis, though it cannot reason2 available in a single volume, may also be a start2 ably be expected. Preston had only fifty pages ing point for reflection on the Washington treaty whereas Parkes in his British Battleships devoted and arms limitation. over two hundred pages to the same period. The This is a useful reference book for those editor makes no attempt to bring together parallel interested in the specialty. It should be a ttractive or sequential developments of different countries. for many reasons, not the least of which is its The lack of references or a bibliography will comparatively modest price. annoy researchers who want to pursue something. Against these shortcomings there are some William Glover noteworthy strengths. The book is richly illus- Manotick, Ontario Book Reviews 131

Tristan Jones. Heart of Oak. St. Martin's Press, formed part of the escort for Convoy PQ 17. For 1984; Dobbs Ferry, NY: Sheridan Press, 1997. fear of destruction by Tirpitz, Admiralty ordered 283 pp., glossary. Cdn $19.95, paper; ISBN 1- the convoy to scatter. Twenty-four out of thirty- 57409-019-4. Distributed in Canada by Nimbus seven merchantmen were sunk while the escort Publishing, Halifax. withdrew to safer waters. Late in 1942, when screening JW51B, the escorts drove off the Heart of Oak is an uninhibited description of one Admiral Hipper, Lutzow and six destroyers before man's experiences of life in the lower deck of the the convoy arrived safely in Murmansk. The last Royal Navy during World War II. Conversations operation in which Jones was present was the are recorded as faithfully as possible as are songs destruction of Scharnhorst in 1943. When his as they were sung. There is a glossary of naval ship was on her way to the invasion of Normandy terms, many of which were used but have not Jones was drafted to service in the Far East. He been recorded elsewhere. To avoid embarrass- completed his twelve2year-engagement in 1952. ment of persons still alive some names of people The main value of Heart of Oak lies in the and ships have been altered. descriptive detail. Daily life in Britain between Tristan Jones went to sea at the age of four- 1940 and 1944, air raids, railway travel, rationing, teen as a deck boy in a coastal sailing ketch out of sex, the Yanks, profiteering, class distinction and Wales. In 1940, aged sixteen, he joined the Royal so on, are all starkly portrayed. Life in the Boys' Navy as a Boy Seaman and went off for ten Training Establishment is related in painful detail, months' basic training at HMS Ganges, a Boys' including the view from the masthead. Some Training Establishment at Shotley near Harwich. might blush to recall the style of amusing and The training was intense and those who survived foul language and ribald song. Some might be were likely to become splendid young seamen. reminded of the picturesque blasts delivered by Jones' first ship was an Armed Merchant Chief and Petty Officers. The word pictures of the Cruiser fitting out in Southampton. Soon com- fittings and conditions of old and new destroyers, pleted, she was mid-Atlantic escorting a convoy to the last rivet and messtraps, would be difficult bound for Canada when a boiler room fire broke to improve. With regard to the battle experiences, out. The fire spread and the ship began to sink. In it can be said that many officers and men in the high seas the crew had to jump on to the plunging Royal Navy could have been present for all such deck of the rescuing destroyer. After survivor's events. Based on my own experiences, Heart of leave Jones was drafted to an older destroyer built Oak is a valuable record for posterity. in 1917 — another interesting experience. She was a screening destroyer with the forces seeking L.B. Jenson Bismarck and Prinz Eugen as the German war- Queensland, Nova Scotia ships broke out into the Atlantic. Jones related witnessing the destruction of HMS Hood and, a Alfred E. Deeble. Three Tiffies and a Sweeper. few days later, of Bismarck under the guns of the Bishop Auckland, Durham: Pentland Press, 1997. Home Fleet. Later in that summer of 1941, he had xv + 145 pp., photographs. £15, cloth; ISBN 1- the more pleasant experience of seeing Prime 85821-520-X. Minister Churchill in HMS Prince of Wales bound for his historic meeting with President The first factual histories to appear after World Roosevelt. In late 1941 Britain began sending War II tended to be written by captains and gen- supplies to Russia via convoys through the erals. Then came the "official" histories and Barents Sea. On a bloody passage to Murmansk assessments, followed in turn by the exposées of eleven merchantmen were sunk and on the return clay feet and errors by so-called armchair quarter- trip Jones' destroyer was torpedoed and sank. backs. It is mostly in recent years that the lower Survivors were picked up quickly by another echelons of the combatants, now retired from destroyer, transferred to a merchantman, almost time-consuming employment, are producing their immediately sunk by a bomb down the funnel, personal memoirs. This slim book is one of this and rescued again by the same destroyer. genre, written by a wartime engine room artificer Jones' next ship, an 0-class destroyer, or "tiffie." Such books can usefully fill in minor 132 The Northern Mariner gaps in the pictures of naval warfare and history. Hay, of HMS Repulse, has written a first-person Despite its title, there is very little about account of the sinking, and it was with great mine-sweepers or engine room operations in anticipation that I opened the book. Although the Deeble's tale, in his case that of a Canadian-built disaster is narrated as advertised, overall this Algerine-class fleet sweeper. He takes us through volume proved to be disappointing. his joining routine and, sketchily, his time in a It begins simply enough, touching on Hay's training cruiser. Then there is an extended des- early life in Glasgow and his training as a boy cription of his June 1943 trip with three mates to seaman in HMS Ganges. This part of the book Toronto to pick up HMS Clinton. (There are no provides lots of colour, with numerous little dates in this tale, so it is a bit difficult to deter- vignettes that open a window on a way of life mine when events occur.) We get rather long now gone by — stories of boat and sail drill, descriptions of his leaves, a visit to Detroit to climbing the mast, swimming lessons, and (not visit an aunt, and even side employment in the surprisingly!) food. It makes for interesting and shipyard to augment his meagre ERA's RN pay. entertaining reading. Thrown in, almost ran- Not until page 106, when his ship puts to sea domly, is a peculiar account of a murder onboard on operational training, do we have the opportu- HMS Dorsetshire, supposedly recounted in latter nity to follow his duties in the ship's engineering years by a retired admiral. department. As it is, Clinton only lasts until mid- The real meat begins when Hay joins Re- October 1944 before being heavily damaged by a pulse immediately pre-war. The pages offer snap- mine when sweeping at Piraeus, Greece. After shots of life as a sailor in a Royal Navy capital temporary repairs she steamed to Malta, where ship — the author's anecdotes are the best pa rt of Deeble left her, the last of the three `tiffies who the book. Particularly good is Chapter Eleven, had joined in Toronto. "Arctic Patrol," which gives a real feeling for There is some useful stuff here for anyone what it was like as part of the crew of a 15-inch with an interest in the lives of those "around the gun turret. Unfortunately, this is marred by some engine," as Churchill termed them. The author of the many errors strewn throughout — the USS adopts the unusual style of writing in the third Missouri is a battleship, not a battlecruiser, it was person — he is "Ted" throughout, so one gets a her sister Iowa which suffered the explosion in somewhat detached view of his reactions ashore, her turret (`B,' not `A'), and it did not occur off and of his relationships, not always harmonious, the coast of Lebanon. [77] There are numerous afloat with his mates. I found this a bit ingenuous, such errors, all of which should have been caught: as though we were sharing a minor, unnecessary Hurricane fighters were not "updated versions" of secret. There are a few very small errors — Storm- Spitfires [89]; HMS Hood did not encounter the cock' s theoretical crew from Kipling's poem of Bismarck before the 18th Cruiser Squadron [100]; the sweepers of World War I would be hurt at Admiral Lütjens of the German Navy was not their omission from his quotation! Yet the errors involved in the "Channel Dash" which, moreover, are fewer in number than in that other and similar occurred after his death in the Bismarck [102]; ERA's story, Tubal Cain (Lewes, 1986). In short, and he has confused the Battle of the Coral Sea this is a slim but useful addition. (May 1942) with the Battle of the Java Sea in which the destroyer HMS Electra was sunk. [184] Fraser McKee More subtle is the way in which Hay — perhaps Markdale, Ontario through a too-liberal application of artistic license — makes it seem as though HMS Repulse was Ian Hay. Singapore Repulsed: The Battle Cruiser actually in action against the Bismarck, and while Repulse. Bishop Auckland, Durham: Pentland it makes a fine depiction of the patriotism of her Press, 1997. 230 pp., photographs, appendices. crew, it is highly doubtful that Repulse would £13.50, paper; ISBN 1-85821-542-0. have been of much use in a one-on-one duel against the German battleship. [107] These mis2 The loss of Force Z, battleship Prince of Wales takes make it difficult to trust the accuracy of the and battlecruiser Repulse, was one of the great book. The narration itself tends to be disjointed tragedies of World War II. Ordinary Seaman Ian and sometimes difficult to follow. Book Reviews 133

Hay's account of the sinking of Repulse is only wish he had begun his writing career at a adequate, albeit somewhat scattered, and does much earlier date. Beginning with a highly evoca- bring home the bravery that occurred amidst the tive chapter of his childhood days in a Catholic shambles. Although the book's cover hints at school in Philadelphia in the 1930s, Furey suc- controversy, the author is in accord with others cessfully evokes a lost time of boyish innocence, who blame the Admiralty and Churchill for an innocence he would soon lose when he was sending Force Z out without the carrier Indomita- inducted into the US Navy in August 1942 while ble, and he does not censure the force com- still a teenager. Trained as an airman and radio- mander, Admiral Philips, for proceeding without man, the young recruit found himself languishing fighter cover. Also justified is his belief that in a series of posts state-side while the war Singapore should not have fallen so rapidly, and seemed to pass him by. But by early 1944, Furey that the senior officers should not have fled. and the rest of his bomber\ reconnaissance crew Ian Hay is a man rightly proud of his time were in the South Pacific, conducting long-range spent in a great service, and his generation made patrols over the not-always-so-tranquil waters of great sacrifices in the cause of freedom. It is the vast Pacific Ocean. therefore unpleasant for this reviewer to be unable For those who prefer the "drum and trumpet" to recommend his book: there are simply too school of military history, Furey's account offers many flaws for it to be a useful source on the loss relatively little "real" excitement. His brief career of HM Ships Repulse and Prince of Wales. at the front amounted mostly to long and boring patrols, enduring bad food and worse living con- William Schleihauf ditions, and tedious military duties. He does, Pierrefonds, Québec however, include numerous funny anecdotes, Particularly amusing, for instance, is his account Charles Furey. Going Back: A Navy Airman in of how he, having never had a driver's license, the Pacific War. Annapolis: Naval Institute Press, had to learn to drive an army truck at night while 1997. ix + 230 pp., photographs. US $32.95, Cdn relaying increasingly alarmed flight crews to their $45.95, cloth; ISBN 1-55750-278-1. Canadian waiting aircraft; one easily assumes that those distributor, Vanwell Publishing, St. Catharines, crewmen probably viewed their missions as far ON. less dangerous than the ride provided by airman Furey. His own crew, though, had two "high" The 1990s, with its numerous significant and moments. While based at New Guinea, the plane tragic golden anniversaries, have brought forth bombed and strafed a submarine caught on the many new accounts of the greatest conflict hu- surface, only to discover upon its return to base mankind has ever had to endure. Indeed, many that the craft, luckily undamaged, had been find it quite ironic that the public interest in American. Then, just a few weeks later, that World War II seems unquenchable even as the mistake is forgotten when Furey and his mates generation that fought in and survived that stun- surprise and shoot down a Betty, a small Japanese ning conflagration dies away daily. Fortunately bomber near Los Negros. for those of us who were born after 1945 but who The emotional core of the book, however, remain fascinated by that ever distant war, many lies in its description of the aftermath of a sho rt of those who went to battle between 1939 and plane ride in May 1944. That ride, ending tragi- 1945 have sought to keep their experiences alive cally at the end of an island runway, killed three in memoirs, some doing so more successfully of Furey's crew mates and left him horribly than others. burned and battered. From then until his release Among the successes must be included from the navy in September 1945, Furey's war Charles Furey's Going Back: A Navy Airman in consisted of moves to various hospitals in Austra- the Pacific War. The dustjacket asserts that the lia and the United States, and numerous, and author began this book while attending a writing ultimately successful, skin graft operations. class at the College of the Redwoods in 1995. If one longs for descriptions of battle and Given the quality of Furey's writing sty le and the blood, then Going Back: A Navy Airman in the emotional wallop of his engaging story, one could Pacific War likely is not for you. If, however, 134 The Northern Mariner your taste runs to an intensely humanistic account even so the incredible comprehensiveness of the of one man's lonely war, then this very fine book latter is striking. For every cruiser class, there are fits the bill. It was a great pleasure to read. background narratives of each building program, construction and engineering notes, se rvice Galen Roger Perras histories, and indepth studies of hull characteris- Calgary, Alberta tics, armor schemes, armament, fire-control installations, propulsion and machinery, and Eric Lacroix and Linton Well II. Japanese Cruis- habitability. ers of the Pacific War. Annapolis: Naval Institute So, whether you wish to know the propeller Press, 1997. xiii + 882 pp., figures, photographs, shaft dimensions, torpedo fire control particulars, tables, glossary, bibliography, index. US $75, or stability data for your favorite Japanese cruiser Cdn $105, cloth; ISBN 0-87021-3H23. Canadian of World War II, you will find it in this handsome distributor, Vanwell Publishing, St. Catharines, volume, published with the usual high production ON. values of the Naval Institute Press. Such exhaus- tive coverage might seem to limit the book's In the tradition of Siegfried Breyer, Antony appeal to the antiquarian, but in fact it se rves to Preston, and Roger Friedman, Lacroix and Wells provide a comprehensive history of Japanese have given us a noteworthy addition to the library naval engineering and strategic thinking for the of naval reference books. The volume is brim- bulk of the first half of the twentieth century. ming with graphics and technical details about the Indeed, by reading selectively, one can trace the design, construction, and service careers of the history of boiler design, ordnance development, roughly five dozen cruisers built, converted, or tactical theory, or any of a variety of other facets planned by the Imperial Japanese Navy in the of the Imperial Japanese Navy in the decades twentieth century. But to depict Japanese Cruis- before and during World War II. It is hard to ers of the Pacific War as simply one more compi- imagine any research topic on the Japanese navy lation of research data, useful though that might in this era that would not profit from a consulta- be for many scholars and aficionados of the tion with this volume. Pacific war, is to understate its utility for all The authors have used sources that include students of the Japanese naval effo rt in World extant official Japanese documents, postwar US War II. What we have is a virtual history of the studies, and numerous memoirs or other postwar Imperial Japanese Navy's surface forces from publications of the Japanese principals. This is, their conceptualization of strategy in the early however, more reflective of the state of the source years of the century through the inglorious dé- material than any weakness in the authors' re- nouement of August 1945. search effort, which was an extensive journey One example should suffice to illustrate the through myriad primary and secondary materials depth of coverage offered by the authors. In the over the course of many years. Some recently authoritative Warships of the Imperial Japanese declassified cryptanalytic series, such as the Navy, 186921945, by Hansgeorg Jentschura, Japanese Water Transport Messages, might have Dieter Jung, and Peter Mickel (Naval Institute been explored, though it is unlikely that the Press, 1970, 1982), the Mogami, a typical heavy relevant material in such collections would have cruiser, draws less than a page of text, figures, added or altered much of the final product. An- and drawings, but Lacroix and Wells devote more other possible criticism is that the book neglects than fifteen pages to the vessel, plus dozens of the Imperial Japanese Navy's numerous auxiliary photographs and drawings and numerous listings cruisers, i.e., commandeered and converted in assorted statistical tables. And this is only the merchantmen, but possibly the authors felt that, at space Lacroix and Wells set aside for the Mogami nearly nine hundred pages, the book was already herself; the entire story of the Mogami-class crowding reasonable length and cost parameters. vessels covers fully sixty-eight pages. Admittedly The minor reservations notwithstanding, comparisons with Jentschura are of limited value these "amateur" historians have spent years because the avowed scope of that work differs producing a massive tome that meets the finest from the volume under consideration here, but standards of the profession. The great effo rts Book Reviews 135 expended in the process reveal that this prodi- maxim that nothing is quite as simple as it may at gious technical compendium is in fact a monu- first seem. Apart from learning why the captain mental labor of love. and crew of the Queenfish were blissfully and negligently unaware of the identity of the Awa Mark P. Parillo Maru before she was torpedoed, the reader is Manhattan, Kansas made aware of the disturbing fact that the Japa- nese High Command had to some extent compro- Roger Dingman. Ghost of War: The Sinking of mised the humanitarian aspect of the voyage of the Awa Maru and Japanese-American Relations, the Awa Maru (she had been carrying food and 1945-1995. Annapolis: Naval Institute Press, medicine to American and Allied prisoners of 1997. xiii + 373 pp., photographs, map, notes, war) by loading contraband goods (rubber and tin bibliography, index. US $35, Cdn $48.95, cloth; ingots amongst other items) aboard her. This did ISBN 1255750-159-9. Canadian distributor, not explain why the Queenfish sank her on that Vanwell Publishing, St. Catharines, ON. dark and sinister night but it certainly provided ammunition for those in American naval circles For over twenty years Professor Dingman has who wished to provide retrospective justification explored various aspects of East Asian history for doing so. Whether two wrongs made a right, with an undiminished enthusiasm and persistence however, scarcely seemed to matter to those who that has led to over fifty international a rticles and wished to whitewash the guilt of the accused. several seminal monographs. His Power in the It would be extremely difficult to sustain the Pacific (Chicago, 1976) remains the standard pace and drama that is so evident in the first five work on the Washington Conference. His latest chapters of Ghost of War for the rest of the book book, Ghost of War, is likely to be seen as an and not surprisingly perhaps the two chapters equivalent text for the tragic Awa maru episode. devoted to the diplomatic exchanges between the All the usual elements of Dingman's scholarly Americans and the Japanese in the post-war endeavours — meticulous research, shrewd analy- Occupation period are much less vivid than those sis and balanced and candid conclusions — are which preceded them. Nonetheless, they too have found in this most absorbing study of the long- the Dingman stamp of authority on them. term consequences of what the author calls the Two further chapters demonstrate very stark- greatest submarine error of World War II, ly how the two sides in this tragedy depicted the namely, the torpedoing and destruction of the destruction of the Awa Maru in books and films Japanese passenger-cargo vessel (Awa Maru) by or remembered it in institutional activities and/or the US submarine Queenfish (SS 393) in April devotional shrines. Interestingly, while extolling 1945. Sadly, the Awa Maru, which had been the virtues and heroic qualities of their submarin- sailing under a guarantee of safe passage pro- ers, the Americans have said relatively little about vided by the Americans and was marked with the fate of the Awa Marti, preferring to dwell on large white crosses along her sides, sank sixty the "kills" that eliminated legitimate targets rather metres to the bottom of the Taiwan Straits a few than exposing the sad truth that accidents or miles off the south east coast of China, taking worse do happen in wartime. For their part the more than two thousand men, women and chil- relatives of those that died on board the Awa dren with her. Only one man from this entire Maru, and the Japanese writers and historians vessel, Shimoda Kantaro, was plucked from the who took up their case, had no doubt who were sea to safety by the crew of the Queenfish. the victims of human error or malicious intent and Dingman sets about reconstructing the events official connivance and disinterest in this case. of that most fateful and dramatic of occasions Dingman rounds off his study with two with commendable zeal and authority. His lin- chapters on the salvage operations that various guistic fluency is matched by his writing style people sought unsuccessfully to mount before the which, although eschewing hyperbole, has a Chinese government announced in March 1979 tempo and vivacity about it that carries the reader that the wreck had been found. In due course the eagerly forward from one ill-starred coincidence Chinese would return what had been found of to the next. This is yet another example of the old those who had perished that night in April 1945 136 The Northern Mariner to the Japanese authorities so that the hungry who had surrendered and were prepared to fight ghosts of the Awa Maru might finally be interred against their former comrades). in their homeland. While all of this as told by individual SEALs Ghost of War is an admirable book by a is interesting, as a non-US Navy member or non- superb historian. In this case the promotional Vietnam participant it is easy to become bored literature is accurate — it is a compelling story reading about the various so rties. I recommend and powerfully told. that the book not be read "all in one gulp" but three or four interviews at a time. The SEALs' Malcolm H. Murfett description of the so rties, ambushes and other Kent Ridge, Singapore skirmishes with the enemy in which they were engaged would undoubtedly be of interest to Dennis J. Cummings. The Men Behind the Hollywood film-makers; they contain all the in- Trident: SEAL Team One in Vietnam. Annapolis: gredients that make wartime adventure films Naval Institute Press, 1997. xvi + 270 pp., photo- interesting. I would have preferred, however, had graphs, glossary. US $29.95, Cdn $41.95, cloth; Cummings cast his first-class interview material ISBN 1-55750-139-4. Canadian distributor, within some type of analytical framework so that Vanwell Publishing, St. Catharines, ON. it would be more useful for training purposes or for understanding "what went wrong" in Vietnam For those interested in the day-to-day activities or for understanding guerrilla-type warfare better. and training of a highly trained group of US Navy Those interested in the wartime uses and commandos active in Vietnam, 1963-1972, this capacity of small vessels to operate in deltas and book will be hard to put down. The verbatim rivers in confined jungle areas should find much reporting of interviews with twenty of the former material of interest here as the SEALs describe SEALs should interest them very much. Most their adventures using twelve- and fifteen-foot readers, however, will be disappointed. Boston Whalers, PBRs (Patrol Boat, River), PCF Members of SEAL (US Navy Sea-Air-Land (Patrol Craft, Fast), IBS (Inflatable Boat, Small), commandos) units all underwent rigorous Under- LCPL (Landing Craft, Personnel Light), "junks" water Demolition Team training (UDT) before and sampans. Likewise those interested in the being selected for further extensive training in uses and capacity in jungle warfare of various schools operated by the Army, Navy, Air Force types of firearms carried by the SEALs will find and Marine Corps. Whereas UDT activities were much of interest in this book. confined primarily to underwater sorties against Given recent problems among highly trained enemy ships "in the middle of the night and get members of the Canadian Armed Forces while away undetected," SEAL missions included the "peacekeeping" in Somalia and Bacovici (former "destroying of shipping, bridges, railway lines Yugoslavia) three aspects of this book which and other facilities in maritime and riverine would be of considerable interest to social scien- elements." Their major task was the gathering of tists are the role of individual attachment to the intelligence and information about the enemy, the peer group (team) which enabled SEAL members Viet Cong, in the Rung Sat Special Zone and the to display considerable courage and to stand fast Mekong Delta and other areas. Operations were in the face of overwhelming odds, the role and clandestine and carried out in outmost secrecy. function of individual identity with a specific unit When in contact with the enemy they always tried (SEAL) rather than with the larger organization to capture rather than kill so that prisoners could (US Navy), and the process of the acquisition of be interrogated by US Navy Intelligence. As one this binding identity. respondent explained, they primarily followed All in all, while it is not entirely without "sneak and peek" tactics, a reflection of the SEAL merit, this book is not in the same league as J. training which featured weapons handling, patrol- Valerio Borghese's Sea Devils: Italian Navy ling and insertion/extraction techniques. Another Commandos in World War II. important SEAL task was the training of LDNN (Lien Doi Nguoi Nhai), Vietnamese SEALs as Bruce A. McFarlane well as working with the Hoi Chanhs, (Viet Cong Ottawa, Ontario