BOOK REVIEWS

Adrian Jarvis, Roger Knight, Michael Stammers initiatives as a part of a wider heritage industry." (eds.). IXth International Congress of Maritime [5] I have quoted this statement because it sets the Museums Proceedings. Liverpool: Merseyside tone for the whole conference. Maritime Museums and London: National Mari- The principal papers on the general theme all time Museum, 1997. 207 pp., figures, photo- emphasize the falling-off of visitor numbers to graphs, illustrations, tables. [Free to individual museums generally, and particularly to maritime and institutional members of ICMM; available in museums, which has been characteristic, at least libraries of member institutions], paper; ISBN 0- in the United Kingdom, of recent years. Professor 9530408-0-1. Stuart Davies rightly put his finger on the signifi- cance of the fading collective public memory as The International Congress of Maritime Museums things maritime move further and further from the was founded at a meeting of maritime museums normal everyday experience of most people. of the Atlantic basin at the National Maritime Shortage of money and the absence of a govern- Museum at Greenwich in 1972. This meeting was ment policy (at least in Britain) for museums have organized jointly by the National Maritime Mu- driven some institutions virtually to cease to be seum and Mystic Seaport, Connecticut, in the museums at all and to become "all purpose leisure belief, strengthened by recent experiences, that attractions." Although Professor Davies did not there would be great advantages in developing refer to this factor the deliberate extinction in close links internationally between institutions some maritime museums of the scholar curator, with such strong common interests. still fortunately fundamental to the running of Twenty-five years later at its ninth full such great institutions as the British Museum, has meeting (there had also been smaller regional also been a factor in the lowering of standards. meetings) the Congress, having met in between in No less than four papers have as their subject Oslo, Mystic, Paris, Hamburg, Amsterdam, the unfortunate controversy over the salving and Stockholm and Barcelona, returned to Britain. exhibition of the Titanic material which has given Meetings at Liverpool, Po rtsmouth and Green- rise to much criticism of the British National wich were attended by representatives of twenty- Maritime museums, and brought it into conflict nine countries and some eighty separate institu- with the International Congress. Graeme Hender- tions. There were a total of 120 delegates as well son in his paper "Underwater Archaeology and as some visiting speakers. The Congress is now the Titanic — the I.C.M.M. View," ably presents one of the liveliest and strongest of museum the case of the Congress in this matter. international bodies. The professional papers are on the whole of The papers presented in 1997 fall readily into a high standard. Among the most interesting are three groups: those which dealt with the problems that by Alan Stimson on "Museums in Historic of the maritime museum at the end of the twenti- Buildings. Can you get it right?," Revell Carr of eth century; the long drawn-out professional Mystic Seaport on the gains and pitfalls of pro- dispute over the ethics of the salving and exhibi- grammes of evaluation of exhibitions, and Paul tion of artifacts salved from the Titanic; and Rees on the real value of interactive displays (he papers of general interest. is cautious in his verdict). There are four papers In the words of the (unsigned) Preface the on different aspects of African slavery and its papers in the first category "addressed the chal- consequences, of which perhaps the most interest- lenges and opportunities which arise from the ing is that of Mary Malloy on the employment of rapid changes taking place in recreational activi- Afro-Americans in the merchant shipping indus- ties and in the leisure industry around the world. try of the United States in former years. Museums are no longer isolate places of scholar- The "Proceedings" are nicely produced. An ship, but often placed in the forefront of tourist index, although not customary in this publication,

89 90 The Northern Mariner

would have been helpful, as also notes on those interesting chapter. contributors who do not appear on the list of Jocelyn Palmers illustrated account of her participants. The views expressed are very much voyage in Viking from Australia to Falmouth, those of the individuals who spoke and there is which took from March 11 until 27 July 1948, some stimulating stuff here. will hold the readers interest. The writer is responsible for all the fine English summaries of Basil Greenhill this interesting books chapters and repo rts. Boetheric, Cornwall Equally fascinating are the accounts that reveal the personalities of those who served in the Börje Karlsson, Justus Harberg, Per-Ove Högnäs, barques. One chapter, for instance, is devoted to Henrik Karlsson, Bertil Lindqvist, Bjarne John Sommarström, who served fifty years at sea. Olofsson, Anita Pensar, Göte Sundberg (eds.). He rounded the Horn no less than eighteen times. Sjöhistorisk Årsskrift for Aland, 1996-97. Marie- Much of his service was as sailmaker in Eriksons hamn: Alands Sjöfartsmuseum , 1997. 175 pp., ships. His last voyage was in 1950 in Passat. photographs, illustrations, figures. FIM 100 (plus Ashore he continued his trade and became one of FIM 40, ph; payment by cheque preferred), the best guides to the museum ship Pommern. T. paper; ISBN 952-90-9240-7. Palmer contributes another short chapter, "The Last Albatross," about Captain Paul Sommarlund, The Yearbook of the Aland Maritimes Museum, who died aged 91 on Boxing Day 1996. He was published by the Aland Nautical Club, contains a the last member of the Aland branch of the Asso- wealth of articles that will appeal both to those ciation of Cape Homers. The Association dis- interested in the history of cargo-carrying sailing solves on its last members demise. vessels and to those wishing to acquire know- An illustrated article by J. Roger Toll con- ledge of the operations of small shipowners from cerns the galeas Rea, built in 1901 at Göta Aland the late nineteenth century to the present day. for the firewood trade between Aland and Stock- 1 997 was the fiftieth anniversary of the death holm. The vessel became Swedish owned in of Gustaf Erikson, famous for operating four- 1905, and in 1939, the property of Swedish Film masted barques in the grain traded in the post- Industry which used her in two films. In the last, World War I and World War II eras. J. Harberg she was spectacularly blown up! provides a synopsis of Eriksons life both as Steamship ownership made its appearance in seaman and shipowner. At the time of his death, Aland in 1927 when the Alpha company bought Erikson owned diesel and steam tonnage totalling SS Tabunbury, and continued through until 1973. 36,925 tons, in addition to four barques. His least The chapter entitled "You Cant Beat the Steam" successful vessel was the barque L 'Avenir, pur- was the result of a documentation project fi- chased from Belgian owners in 1932. In forty nanced by the Aland Nautical Club. It is based on pages, G. Sundberg records her saga. To obtain interviews with twelve who had served "in steam" some return from his investment, Erikson in 1933 and an unpublished memoir. An impo rtant part of initiated Baltic cruises with L 'Avenir . Only one Alands maritime history has thus been preserved. voyage produced a profit. Later proposals to use In "Some Memories from the Ferry Epoch," L 'Avenir as a hotel or as a Mediterranean cruise Captain Y. Hagerstrand, formerly senior master of ship never matured. Consequently, when cargoes the Swedish Slite Company, tells of his twenty- became available, the ship returned to the Austra- eight years experiences in the Sweden, lian grain trade. L'Avenir was finally sold in 1937 Marchamn, Abo service. Unfortunately, the Slite to German owners and renamed Admiral Companys financial difficulties ended his long Karpfanger. She disappeared on her return voy- career. Another essay by Captain J. Harberg age from Australia in 1938. According to one provides a useful synopsis of Alands shipping expert, L 'Avenir's long shelter deck, combined industry from Alands provincial autonomy in with a low head owing to less skilled stowage, 1922 until 1996. Harberg maintains that the would make steering difficult. Five museums, activity can be divided into three separate stages, Mariehamns county records, and two retired the last of which included the rise of ferry traffic. captains memories were the sources for this A curiosity in the latters beginning was the Book Reviews 91

acquisition of the British Southern Railways at one end of the trail. For the author, this job led thirty-five-year-old cross-channel turbine steamer to a series of community-oriented jobs. For Dinard. (Your reviewer remembers a night pas- middle-aged readers who remember their own sage in Dinard from Southampton to St. Malo in youth, there is the hilarity of recognizing a famil- 1925. I was then nine years old.) iar cast of characters (from government bureau- Finally, there is an eighteen-page summary crats to fading hippies). of an academic study by K. Grundström about the There is no theme to Number 17 although career of Robert Mattson, from seaman to indus- White claims this is the "medical issue" — be- trialist. It tells of Mattsons business activities in cause of Hamiltons article about smallpox and both shipping and other enterprises from the other epidemics, Whites analysis of the illness- 1870s until his death in 1935. There are also four related decimation of the Kalpalin B and, chapters which provide information about the Margaret McKirdys repo rt on The People's co-operation begun with the Hulls Universi ty, the Home Medical Book, a sort of self-help guide for Nautical Clubs, Museums, and Pommern founda- amateur doctors ("Have a curved knife with both tions, as well as annual reports. Your reviewer edges sharp and it should be placed in boiling enjoyed the entire book; its contents add not only water ... Call the patients attention to something to Ålands history, but also to the records of on the other side of the room and while he is seafaring activities in the Baltic area. looking away press down hard.") Ouch! Whites Harbour Publishing is making an Dan G. Harris enormous contribution to our understanding of Nepean, Ontario B.C. coastal life. Despite the arrival of American publishing interests and the difficulties of getting Howard White (ed.). Raincoast Chronicles Seven- a Canadian perspective before Canadians, White teen: Stories & History of the British Columbia continues to flourish from his humble coastal Coast. Madeira Park, BC: Harbour Publishing, office. The Raincoast Chronicles are perfect for 1 996. 80 pp., illustrations, photographs. $12.95, high school Social Studies work but also make a paper; ISBN 1-55017-142-9. good read for adults. Mine are kept at my island place and have been read by cranky fishermen This is the seventeenth in Howard Whites chron- and Ministers of Education. They always stimu- icles of the British Columbia coast. The series late discussion. Bravo Howard! Carry on! began as the result of a federal youth grant in 1972 and, by his own admission, White raised Roger Boshier eyebrows by treating the 1950s as history "before Vancouver, British Columbia they had acquired a sufficiently sepia-toned aura of antiquity in many peoples minds." In this John Bowen (ed.). Model Shipwright: An Anthol- series, White and his collaborators set out to ogy, 1972-1997. London: Conway Maritime chronicle the characters and colour of the BC Press, 1997. 192 pp., photographs, illustrations, coast. Ironically, White himself has now become figures. £20, cloth; ISBN 0-85177-729-5. Cana- part of the phenomenon of which he writes. As dian distributor, Vanwell Publishing, St. well as being a onetime candidate for the NDP, Catharines, ON. White today presides over the active Harbour Publishing Company from his hole-in-the-wall This anthology celebrates twenty-five years of the office at Madeira Park, a small coastal nook well publication of the quarterly journal Model Ship- out of sight of Vancouver coffee shops. wright. The journal showcases the work of ship In Raincoast Chronicles 17, White takes on model builders, including the works of many of an era familiar to many Northern Mariner readers the leading international proponents of the art, — the "capricious paisley-trimmed decade of our miniaturists as well as those who work in the own beginnings" — the 1970s. Hence, one chapter more common scales. concerns the expenditure of an OFY (Opportuni- The last twenty-five years have seen a dra- ties for Youth) grant on the West Coast trail. The matic resurgence in model ship building. This idea was to establish an advisory centre for hikers may be due to more leisure time and the availabil- 92 The Northern Mariner

ity of accurate plans, research materials, special- well' by Dana McCalip; "Victorian Steam Launch ized tooling, building materials and equipment, Branksome" by D.J. Jacques; "Greek Paddle including highly developed and reliable radio Frigate Epicheiresis" by Steve Kirby; "Whaling control equipment. While the quality of static Brigantine Viola" by Lloyd McCaffery; "HMS models has advanced significantly over those Anson" by J.J. Taylor; "Carmania Cunard Liner years, many of what would appear to be superb 1905" by John Bowen; "Xebec Mistique of 1762" static models are, in fact, operational radio con- by Peter Heriz-Smith; "Stern Wheeler Far West" trolled models, either power or sail driven. The by William Wiseman; "HMS Tartar (1734)" by journal, Model Shipwright, tends to chronicle the Donald McNarry FRSA; "The Naval Gig" by changes in model ship building over those years Douglas Hamby; "HMS Diana (1794)" by Philip and has been a valuable source of information Reed; " Udenmaa Gamla, A Swedish Skerry during that time period. Frigate (1760)" by A. Ludbrook; "HMS Belfast, Since most articles are only a few pages long A World War II cruiser at 1/50 scale" by Brian — few are as long as fifteen, and some consist of King; and the magnificent "Confederacy, the just three or four pages — there is rarely room for Continental Frigate (1778)" by Justin Camarata. the presentation of much material of an instruc- This anthology not be an absolute necessity tional nature regarding model building. In those for those with a full run of the jou rnal, but it li mited number of pages the general approach is makes an excellent primer for those considering for the author to present the history of the vessel subscribing to the journal Model Shipwright. presented, the research done prior to building, including plans and contemporary photographs, N.R. Cole followed by an outline of the construction tech- Toronto, Ontario niques employed, often accompanied by model photographs, a source list and bibliography, all Christopher Andreae, Geoffrey Matthews incidentally very well produced. Despite the tight, (cartog.), Mark Fram. Lines of Country: An Atlas cramped format, it is a well presented journal, of Railway and Waterway History in Canada. very popular internationally. Erin, ON: Boston Mills Press, 1997. ix + 226 pp., In this anthology, John Bowen, who served maps (39 full-colour), photographs, figures, for most of the life of the journal as its editor, has tables, bibliography, indices. Cdn $95, US $75, selected and reprinted twenty-six articles from the cloth; ISBN 1-55046-133-8. hundreds that have appeared since the journals inception. Because the volume celebrates a This is a work of prodigious scholarship, reflect- twenty-five year period, I expected Bowen to ing years of research by Christopher Andreae. Its choose one article from each year, plus an addi- coverage of railway history is comprehensive and tional and exceptional one. That is not the c ase. individual maps are well supported by authorita- Some years are heavily represented; for example tive text and well-chosen photographs. Indeed, there are four articles from 1990, and two from the railway sections are virtually impossible to each of 1977, 1981, 1983, 1988 and 1991. There fault, making this truly an indispensable magnum are nine years not represented at all, including the opus of Canadian railroad history. The index first two and last two years of the publication. takes some getting used to but once mastered, is Clearly there were excellent choices published in quite helpful. The quality of production of this the missing years, a view confirmed by a review large oblong volume is a tribute to the publisher. of the journal index, as suggested by Bowen. In contrast, the coverage of waterways argu- Still, the twenty-six articles which were ably lacks an overall grasp of their significance. reprinted here provide a good profile of the kind The preface candidly explains that inclusion of of material presented in the jou rnal, albeit some- waterways in this massive project was a second what heavily weighted in favour of static models thought that gradually gained momentum. Lines and miniatures. These include "Colonial Ship of Country does indeed provide useful overview Yard Diorama of about 1785" by Harold Hahn; discussions of the evolution of marine transporta- "Russian Circular Ironclad Novgorod' by Colin tion technology. In addition, the text and photo- Gross; "Ketch-Rigged Sloop (1752) HMS Speed- graphs cover an impressive breath of detail. Book Reviews 93

(Perhaps inevitably, errors can be spotted; CP Hugh G.J. Aitken. The Welland Canal Company: Ocean Services took over the Allan Line in 1909, A Study in Canadian Enterprise. Harvard Univer- not 1917 as stated. [5]) However, an overall sity Press, 1954; repr., St. Catharines, ON: Cana- context of why and how waterways have been dian Canal Society, 1997 [P.O. Box 23016, i mportant in shaping Canada does not come Midtown Postal Outlet, 124 Welland Avenue, St. through clearly. The authors statement that Catharines, Ontario L2R 7P6]. 178 pp., maps, "Canadas 19th and 20th century railway develop- figures, appendix (tables, figures), notes, index. ment had much greater economic and social $21.95 (+ $3.50 p+h), paper; ISBN 0-9681987-0- importance than waterways" [vi] is at least open 8. Distributed by Riverbank Traders, St. to argument. It perhaps explains why waterways Catharines, ON. receive less authoritative coverage than does tracked transpo rtation on land. This paperback edition of Hugh G.J. Aitkens The two main disappointing features of the classic study of the Well and Canal Company is to waterways section are its weak coverage of the be commended if only because the book has been development of the St. Lawrence Ship Channel out of print for so long. Since its original publica- and what can be learned from the maps. The Ship tion in 1954 this slim volume has been considered Channel linking Quebec City with Montreal (as the definitive study of the canals early years. distinct from the Seaway) was a major project that The Welland Canal Company is of histor- absorbed large resources, particularly between iographical impo rtance because it was one of the 1850 and 1914. It directly contributed to first post-war studies to break away from the Montreal gaining such preeminence and then Innis version of the staples theory. Aitkens work retaining for decades its role as Canadas com- is an example of "entrepreneurial history." This mercial metropolis. In fact, efforts to improve the approach to business history was embraced by channel are ongoing today. Probably the Seaway Arthur Cole and his associates at the Harvard would not have been built without this deep water Business Schools Research Center in Entrepre- channel linking Montreal with the ocean. neurial History during the 1940s and 50s. Aitken The second major disappointment in the defines an entrepreneur as a person who is "re- coverage of waterways is the maps. These show sponsible for the inauguration, maintenance, and geographical locations but not much more. Their direction of a profit-oriented enterprise." [111] An value might have been greatly enhanced if, for historian today would more likely describe example, traffic flows in the Great Lakes - St. William Hamilton Merritt as a promoter rather Lawrence system and how they have changed than an entrepreneur. Certainly in the early pa rt of over the years had been illustrated. Cartographic his career he was not a successful businessman. analyses of traffic flows over the years in the As a generator of profits the Welland Canal Atlantic region and the West Coast would also Company was a dismal failure. But as a transpor- have been instructive and valuable. Similarly, tation link in an age of economic imperialism it principal harbours are discussed in the text but was a necessity. The question as to whether the there are no cartographic representations of canals construction was premature given the relative traffic volumes and what types of cargoes state of the Upper Canadian economy would be a have been handled. These reservations are not difficult econometric problem. However to com- meant to obscure the fact that careful study of this pare Merritt to such men as Francis Clergue reference resource will provide many insights into would be a mistake because premature or not the the role of waterways in Canadas development. Welland Canal became an impo rtant part of the However, the reader should look elsewhere for colonys economic infrastructure. authoritative overall coverage. This volume remains a classic of Canadian In summary, this is a magnificent and well- business history. Perhaps all that is lacking in this illustrated railway history that includes useful new edition is a stronger introduction. While a information on waterways. "Note on Sources" mentions that material not available to the author in the form of three canal Jan Drent Ken Mackenzie company minutebooks and several letterbooks is Victoria, B.C. Salt Spring Island, B.C. now held by the National Archives of Canada, 94 The Northern Mariner these documents have not been analyzed except acumen, indeed Becquey himself urged people to to outline the factual data that Aitken missed. A invest more as a matter of national pride than further discussion of this documentation would guaranteed percentage return. have been useful. Equally helpful would have Why such scepticism? Past experience sug- been an appraisal relating Aitkens work to the gested that the cost and time-scale for construc- recent historiography of the Upper Canadian tion would vastly exceed the engineers plans — economy. and both did so. Becqueys canals took twice as long to build as he had suggested. In the end the M. Stephen Salmon project was launched by the state borrowing from Orleans, Ontario private companies who were sweetened, not only by a tempting rate of return on the loan, but also Reed C. Geiger. Planning the French Canals: by the promise of a share in the profits, even after Bureaucracy, Politics, and Enterprise under the the loan had been repaid. Ultimately the state had Restoration. Newark: University of Delaware to buy them out. Press, and London Toronto: Associated Uni- Geiger lucidly explains the contrast between versity Presses, 1995. 338 pp., tables, maps, Britain and France, carefully walking the tight- notes, bibliography, index. US $43.50, cloth; rope of avoiding a refutal of current wisdom that ISBN 0-87413-527-3. France was not intrinsically "backward" (which many contemporaries believed). In Britain canals This is an account of the abo rtive attempt to were a response to economic growth; Becquey galvanize French bankers to finance the comple- hoped that they would create growth. However tion of a network of canals. In the seventeenth France had no national market, her economy was century the French had taken the lead in canal less developed, her population more scattered and engineering and construction, overseen by the her surface area three times as large. Geology was state, financed by a combination of sponsored unfavourable. In Britain navigable waterways private and state money, and privately-owned. were achieved at modest opportunity-cost; water The Briare and Midi canals were the glory of the supply and gradient were favourable in industrial Western world. Little progress ensued in the next areas. French waterways faced erratic water century and the Revolution and Empire were supply and awkward gradients. Improvements to disastrous. Napoleon talked canals — and spent rivers and the building of canals was bound to be French money on war. The professionalization of expensive — not because engineers had grandiose state engineers, trained in the École Polytech- dreams, but because ambitious schemes were nique and the École des Ponts et Chaussées, was needed to combat the terrain. Canal traffic at- perfected, but their classical and mathematical tracted tolls, road transpo rt was free. Geiger training caused them to despise profit. convincingly shows that canals were only an In the early years of the Restoration a "canal economic proposition in very limited areas where mania" built up among engineers and politicians, geography and existing economic growth were convinced that Britains rapid economic progress propitious to an inevitably slow method of trans- was due in part to her privately-financed canals. port. The author is particularly keen to demon- In 1817 Becquey, civil servant and moderate strate that Becqueys failure did not indicate that Royalist, was put in charge of the Grand Council the French were obsessed with a belief in central- of the engineers with the job of planning a canal ised state control. Economic liberalism was network and organizing its financing by private shared by most notables in the 1820s. companies or "associations." Although these were This is a study of failure, but itself is a very years of intense investment and speculation, successful and thoroughly well-informed exami- Becqueys plan attracted only very lukewarm nation of how civil se rvants, politicians and support from bankers such as Rothschild and businessmen tried to work together. Geigers Laffitte. Becqueys plan was debated in the account of why they failed has resonance for Chamber of Deputies where members shared his France today, almost as much as the 1820s. enthusiasm both for canals and for private financ- Experts in navigable waterways as well as those ing, but few were convinced of his business working on nineteenth century history will gain Book Reviews 95 from the lightness of touch as well as the scholar- trade has perhaps been arrested. ship displayed here. These variables are doubtless subject to so many diverse influences that one cannot general- Pamela Pilbeam ize from them. Yet the broadly contrasting perfor- London, England mance of Indian shipping and trade, relative to the rest of the world, during the years covered by Baldev Raj Nayar. The State and Market in Nayar lends particular significance to the domes- India's Shipping: Nationalism, Globalization and tic conflict — between shippers and shipowners — Marginalization. New Delhi: Manohar, 1996: xi which he underlines as being a major determinant + 400 pp:, tables, select bibliography, index. Rs of shipping policy in India. In the self-reliant 600, cloth; ISBN 81-7304-178-4: world of introverted, import-substituting industri- alization, building a strong, domestic merchant This book offers a cogent political-economic shipping industry was an obvious object of public account of the recent history of Indias shipping policy. Now, with the Indian economy looking industry. The account is grounded firmly in an outwards, the colour of the flag no longer seems international context marked by persistent asym- to matter. While this may not be true for all times metries of regimes and institutions and by endur- and all countries — one has only to follow the ing oligopolistic practices in the global shipping authors gaze eastwards from India to recognize industry. This context also lends particular reso- this — resource constraints will probably mean nance to the authors evaluation of domestic that investments in shipping will yield precedence policy debates and conflicts within India about in India to those in trade-related infrastructure for the shipping industry, and his argument for a the foreseeable future: more active role for the state in promoting it. This book, which is organized in eight Since the book is both about regime and chapters, will be of wide interest. The first two response, it is appropriate that the paradox of chapters summarize an extensive political-eco- Indias "sophisticated elites" playing the key role nomic and historical literature bearing on power, among developing nations in efforts towards a markets and institutions, and the Indian shipping reformed maritime transport regime while being industry. Though the authors use of some of much less successful in promoting the countrys these materials is motivated by his main argu- shipping industry configures the authors agenda: ments and is therefore rather uncritical, after Indias share of world tonnage increased from sounding the cautionary note, I am inclined, in 0.39 to 1.44 percent between 1948 and 1993. this instance, to welcome the sharper focus. The (According to another estimate in the book, the three chapters which follow present a largely latter proportion might have been as high as 1:7:) chronological, policy-oriented account of the Neither proportion befits a country of Indias size, growth of the Indian shipping industry. Chapter potential, coastline, and maritime tradition. 6 discusses the retreat of the Indian state from the The growth of the Indian shipping industry shipping industry at a time of crisis and structural compares unfavourably with late developers such change in the latter, and the next two chapters, as Korea, Taiwan, and China, not to mention the while welcoming the broad liberalizing thrust of FOC countries. State policy has played a major public policies in the last decade, essentially role in the promotion of shipping everywhere, makes a post-neoliberal plea for "restructuring" and the book is naturally concerned to explore the the relationship between the state and the market relationship between the state and the shipping in India: But in an industry characterized by industry in India. But it is worth reflecting that market imperfections at several levels, it will take Indian shipping grew faster than in the rest of the a brave civil servant — and the Indian bureau- world until about the mid-1980s. During the same cracy has never been honoured for bravery — to decades, Indias share of world trade, manufactur- make the case for one set of offsetting, state ing output, income, etc. were more or less stead- support or subsidies, rather than another. ily on the decline. On the other hand, while Indias share of world shipping has slipped since G. Balachandran 1987, the slide in the countrys share of world Delhi, India 96 The Northern Mariner

Heinz Haaker: Die "Schiffswerft von Henry Koch "Flender" or the "Lübecker Maschinenbau-Gesell- AG": Ein Kapitel Lübecker Schiffbau- und schaft," which received preferential treatment Industriegeschichte. Hamburg: Deutsches from the city of Lubeck, or whether such things Schiffahrtsmuseum and Ernst Kabel Verlag, as outdated techniques, errors at Koch or 1994: 224 pp., illustrations, photographs, figures, management were the main reasons for the tables, sources, index. DM 98, cloth; ISBN 3- collapse: The last ship to be built left the yard in 8225-0299-5. 1930, after which the shipyard was deserted. The second part of the book consists of a Thanks to Heinz Haaker, an engineer willing to complete list of ships constructed at Hen ry Koch, invest his time in historical studies, the history of including a detailed biography of all ships con- "Henry Koch," a shipyard in Lübeck, has now structed there. been documented. From 1882 until 1934, 287 Haaker bases his study on impressive secon- ships were constructed there. For a while, the dary and archival research. Though he cannot shipyard, which specialized in iron- and steel ship clarify everything which contributed to the col- construction, was the only shipyard and large lapse of the shipyard after the economic disaster industrial complex in the old Hanseatic city at the of the 1920s, nevertheless this easy-to-read and Trave. Today, only memories are left; nothing nicely illustrated case history is a milestone in the remains to recall the days of the shipyard or even industrial and shipbuilding history of Lubeck. It of its founder, Henry Koch, who emerges in could be applied to an overall study of ship- Haakers book as a real pioneer. construction development within the German The biography of Heinrich (Hen ry) Koch, Empire. Certainly, researchers should seek corre- which forms the first pa rt of this book, is in itself lations in the history of industrialization in Ham- an adventure story: Born in 1832 in Wischhafen/ burg and Bremen, the other two Hanseatic cities, Elbe, Koch moved to Australia in 1851 as a as well as later industrial developments. sailor. There, captivated by the gold rush, he secured Australian citizenship and changed his Hartmut Roder Christian name into Henry . He purchased claims Bremen, Germany at Long Gully and installed seventy-six crushing devices. At age forty, he returned to Germany a Patricia M. Brown: The Merchant Princes of wealthy family-man. In Lübeck in 1877 — by no Fremantle: The Rise and Decline of a Colonial means the most promising place for ship building Elite 1870-1900. Nedlands: Universi ty of West- in Germany — he founded the"Dampfschif- ern Australia Press, 1996. x + 235 pp., photo- fahrtsgesellschaft Pioneer." He bought up the graphs, illustrations, notes, bibliography, index: shipyard "Meyer" and in 1882 discontinued build- AU $24.95, paper; ISBN 1-875560-76-9. ing ships of wood and instead launched into the new business of building ships of iron. He named Merchant Princes is an interesting story, well this firm after himself. This shipyard specialized researched and well told: This group was a micro- in iron freighters of 1,000 to 3,600 BRT. Koch cosm of the Western Australian commercial was one of the co-founders of the association world in the second half of the nineteenth cen- "Deutscher Schiffswerften e.V." in 1884. After his tury. Its history is a welcome addition to the death in 1892, his sons took over and by the turn relatively small genre of books concerned with of the century had brought the company to new pioneering business elites in Australia. heights. In 1908 the company was transformed The first three chapters focus on the estab- into a joint stock company: The reason for this, lishment of the merchant group and its struggles however, is unknown: New designs and to secure an improved and appropriately equipped constructions were now introduced, but the port for Fremantle. The goldfields of Kalgoorlie/ company would never recover from the effects of Coolgardie provided the final impetus in the late World War I: Instead, during the Weimar era, it 1890s, both for the betterment of the po rt and for went through a long destructive process. Hacker its preeminent competitive position as the over- cannot clarify whether, towards the end, the seas steamer port-of-call, in the contest with competition of the newly founded shipyards Albany. While many members of the group corn- Book Reviews 97 menced in wholesaling and retailing, they quickly influence also pervaded the Masonic Lodge and formed links with shipping interests and agencies the Anglican and Congregational churches. In and from there diversified in different directions, practice the group also focused on working-class including pearling, whaling, pastoral and mining betterment via Sunday Schools, temperance activities, together with various forms of real societies, charitable works, benefit and building estate in Fremantle: Some were also agents for societies, sporting and recreational clubs, music overseas firms and this expanded and increased and drama societies and Mechanics and Literary the intensity of the business network. Intermar- Institutes; the establishment of the Fremantle riage within the group began in the 1880s, which sailors home, fire brigade and hospital were also helped consolidate business and investment assisted by their efforts. Evangelism and the interests. avoidance of poverty were impo rtant underlying Chapter Four is devoted to labour relations, aims and motives for the elites energies. which were dominated by British "Masters and The final chapter is devoted to the merchant Servants" Acts because these laws were in force princes at home and includes Browns criteria for in Western Australia until the arbitration act of distinguishing the institutional family — a large the first federal government in 1901: The legisla- number of children, close family ties, the trans- tion was used extensively to break up strikes or mission of values between the generations and the potential ones, to thwart demands for wages and acceptance of family control over education and conditions and to manipulate the apprenticeship behaviour. Although the merchant group came system: All unions found it difficult to operate in from the lower socio-economic levels in the an economic environment controlled by the United Kingdom, it was firmly bourgeois in merchant elite. The first claims for wages and Fremantle with all the attendant aspirations and conditions were not made until 1889 and no conspicuous consumption. Many of the British industrial disputes occurred until the 1890s: The social conventions gradually receded and the new shipowners rejected moves for machinery and society was less hierarchical. Changes were more equipment on wharves until 1899 and so wharf noticeable with the second generation who mar- work remained hard, casual and low paid. A ried later, sometimes by intermarriage within the branch of the Australian Steamship Owners Fed- group, sometimes by "marrying down," and had eration (1893) was formed in 1896 and was fewer servants: However, all citizens of Fremantle subsequently impo rtant in the lumpers industrial were equally vulnerable to the diseases which dispute in 1899. However, the resolution of that struck their port and even the elite had its share of strike did significantly erode the shipowners drug and alcohol addiction and the accompanying powers and gave union members the right to suicide. None of the elite lived to their 80s and secure employment. There was also industrial only a few reached their 70s, but the women went militancy in other sections of the workforce on into their 80s and 90s. during the 1890s and the old, patriarchal mode of The author has succeeded in melding a wide industrial relations was being increasingly chal- variety of primary and secondary sources. She lenged. The chapter concludes with details about charts and explains the rise and decline of a the female labour conditions in the domestic work colonial elite with a minimum of social theory place and in the pearling and pastoral industries. and a maximum of readable, lucid prose. The The remaining chapters concentrate on ana- book is not a conventional economic or business lysing the elite in detail. Chapter Five sketches in history although strands from each are either the political networks because the group provided implicit or explicit in most chapters. Never far a number of politicians, company directors, and, from the discussion are the various maritime in addition, constituted much of the pro-Federa- aspects. They provide the warp and weft of the tion pressure in Fremantle: This is therefore a work, and it is that which distinguishes the book useful introduction to Chapter Six, "Power, Status from other accounts of pioneering commercial and Paternalism," which depicts the cultural elites in Australian colonial history: aspects of the group and shows how it reinforced its power via the private school ethos and the way G.R. Henning in which the law and religion were practised. Its Armidale, New South Wales 98 The Northern Mariner

Philip Dawson. Canberra: In the Wake of a flags, it seems cut off in time as well as Legend. London: Conway Maritime Press, 1997. space .... Arrivals and departures are vii + 168 pp., illustrations and photographs (b+w, movements of effortless separation and colour), map: £20, cloth; ISBN 0-85177-707-4: rejoining .... The strip of water widens Canadian distributor, Vanwell Publishing, St: or narrows, a hawser splashes, a tiny Catharines, ON. figure signals from aloft and it is done: A lifetime has been cut, the real world Philip Dawsons illustrated history of the PO drops away as suddenly as a garment.::" cruise liner Canberra may have been a bit pre- sumptuous and therefore incomplete. As her Against accounts such as these it is delightfully draught currently prevents her from getting near easy to let ones mind drift into a languid, care- enough to the cutting torches of a Pakistani free state, where the only decisions to be made breakers yard to enable her scrapping, repo rts concern dressing for dinner and putting a four- continue to circulate that Premier Cruises is some together for bridge as the world glides by eyeing her as a running mate for their new acqui- on the starboard side: sition the Rotterdam, and a British leisure group While this book is a must for every Can- has expressed interest in her as a floating hotel in berra aficionado, it is not the book it should have Durban, South Africa. Therefore, until we know been. Dawson did a far better job in detailing further what the future holds for "the ship of the Canberra's revolutionary ship design in his future," this should be viewed as Canberra's earlier work, British Superliners of the Sixties. history in the livery of PO While he discusses many vessels which influ- As with his previous efforts, Dawson does a enced Canberra's engines aft design, they are not very credible job in recounting the life of the illustrated as they were in his earlier work: The Canberra from the cradle to a possible grave. He Bibby-like effect achieved with the cou rt cabins effectively conveys the important place she holds is also more effectively conveyed in Superliners, in the evolution of ship design, both externally where he provides, through the use of isometric and internally. The story is humanized through plans and specific photos, a clearer understanding the personalized recollection of both crew and how natural light was brought into the inside passengers, not to mention shipbuilders. There is cabins. Also, many of the public rooms which a wealth of anecdotes about luminaries who have Dawson describes in detail are not illustrated, and sailed with her, as well as those not so luminous the convertible cabin option, if mentioned, was (for which PO would surely have wished that done so only in passing. the pleasure of their company had been indefi- The latter part of the book is given over to nitely postponed). Considerable space is given POs efforts to incorporate and duplicate as over to Canberra's role in the Falklands war. many of the distinct features of the Canberra as Through it all, there is a diverse selection of possible into her replacement, the new Oriana. It illustrations and photos — largely black and white would not have been remiss to have included — to accompany the text: photo comparisons showing how successful the Other highlights include a comical piece by naval architects and interior designers were in Punch magazines J:B. Boothroyd on his tour of accomplishing their goals. This was not done: the Canberra upon her completion and an article Surprisingly, the book also lacks an index: by POs Sir Hugh Casson for The Architectural While Dawsons text conveys the right Review of June 1969 entitled "A Ship is an Is- feeling for his subject, his selection of photos and land:" Casson set the right tone for the book and illustrations in large do not: For a vessel which its subject when he wrote in part: spent the majority of its career following the sun in an era when colour photography became the "Inhabited yet mysteriously unexplored, norm, I found the preponderance of murky black self-centred, secretive, wonderful, un- and white photos to be disconcerting. Many — ique. Silhouetted against a horizon or particularly the interior shots — should have been towering white-topped above a quay- replaced, where possible, with colour. It is clear side, ablaze with lights or gay with from the text that the ship designers strove for a Book Reviews 99

ship which featured clean lines, uncluttered is questioned. Technological confidence, after all, furnishings, vividly coloured fabrics, bright walls was only part of a much more complex and ingenious illumination, but you would never Edwardian mentality. As Barbara Tuchman, know it from looking at this book. As well, Robert Wohl and dozens of others have long Dawsons goal would have been better served if shown, the age was well acquainted with anxiety. he had made greater use of pre-maiden voyage More specifically, Nietzsche, Freud, Croce and illustrations, such as the lido deck pictured on others had, at least for some, put a serious dent in page 153 to provide a lighter, more uplifting feel: straightforward scientific rationalism in the The poster which precedes the title page, depict- 1890s: One wonders, moreover, how many ing several dolphins leading the gleaming white aboard Titanic shared W.T. Steads "Spiritualism" hull of the Canberra across a placid, pastel-blue and his misgivings about modernity in its many ocean backlit by a brilliant horizon, provides just guises. These new books, however, like so many the effect that Dawson should have tried to of their genre, tend to state, rather than critically achieve throughout. This, along with the deficien- assess, the hubris theme. But how do they fare at cies mentioned earlier, marks the difference the level of claims to new insights? between a good book and a great one. Dave Brycesons goal is to put primary sources, in this case newspaper clippings, directly John Davies into the hands of readers. He reasons that the best New Westminster, British Columbia way to recapture the mood of the moment would be to watch the story unfold as contemporaries Dave Bryceson: The Titanic Disaster: As Re- did, slowly and at times confusingly in the daily ported in the British National Press April - June press. At first blush, this is a laudable ambition: It 1912. New York and London: W.W. No rton is unfortunate, therefore, that Bryceson does not Company, 1997. 312 pp., photographs, illustra- fulfil it. His chief difficulties lie in the selection tions, index. US $35, Cdn $45, cloth; ISBN 0- and presentation of evidence. Thus, in a book 393-04108-5: Distributed in Canada for Penguin aimed at a general audience, too little thought is Books Canada by Canbook Distribution Se rvices: given to orienting readers towards the nature of the sources they encounter here. There is no brief Donald Hyslop, Alastair Forsyth, Sheila Jemima introduction to the crowded world of British (eds:). Titanic Voices: Memories from the Fateful journalism: There is no discussion of how news Voyage. New York: St. Martins Press, 1997. 296 was gathered, or of the kaleidoscopic range of pp., photographs, illustrations (b+w, colour), papers available, let alone of the considerable appendices, bibliography. US $29.95, cloth; differences between journalistic conventions then ISBN 0-312-17428-4. and now: Striving for immediacy, Bryceson sacrifices contextual and source analysis: But, RMS Titanic now lies submerged as much in ink then, what does this matter? This is a single- as in seawater: Meanwhile, as each "new" study source book! There are, to be sure, very occa- of the ill-starred liner eases down the editorial sional snippets from the Times and a couple of slips, two things almost invariably happen: First, other papers. Overwhelmingly, however, what the formal pieties of this modem morality tale are Bryceson offers is a largely unannotated reprint observed as we are ritually notified that pride of coverage by the Daily Sketch, a London half- went before the fall. This done, a claim to plumb penny pictorial. This immediately raises issues of hitherto murky depths or to throw light from a corroboration and representativeness: The casual new angle is registered: Both books reviewed reader is given no yardstick by which to gauge here run true to form. One, however, founders how typical a particular reaction or editorial slant wile the other glides more or less smoothly on. might have been: One questions, in the end, the Where the pieties are concerned, both dwell amount of genuine research lavished on this tome. initially on the all but compulsory theme of Sources, after all, are scarcely a problem, given hubris shattered by untameable Nature: There has the magnificent national newspaper archives at always been some truth in this. Even so, it is Hendon. All things considered, Bryceson delivers surprising how seldom this oversimplified notion a good deal less than the survey of the "British 100 The Northern Mariner

National Press" promised in his subtitle. disaster is driven home. Southampton itself may Titanic Voices, on the other hand, generally have lived to prosper, but the emotional and eco- succeeds in its claim to clarify one aspect of the nomic effect on individual families registered like story: the impact of the disaster on the liners a thunderclap along street after street of this par- home port, Southampton: Tightly focused and ticularly devastated town. By documenting this in carefully researched, this study rests on a solid detailed and harrowing fashion, this book carves and varied evidentiary base: Drawing on the out a special place amid Titanic lore: riches of the Southampton Maritime Museum and Even so, some points might be questioned: the field work of the latters Oral History Unit, the Were there, for example, only a thousand bottles authors also consult a broad range of newspapers of wine taken on board for the crossing? [54] and secondary sources: Meanwhile, the volume is More significantly, the authors assertion that laden with beautifully reproduced photographs, administrators of the relief fund paternalistically each neatly captioned: The result is a work which "extended their remit to [judge] acceptable and places the tragedy within the long-term history of non-acceptable social behaviour" in claimants the Hampshire town and its people. When this is seems strained at times: [256] Between 1913 and done, some interesting things are brought to light. 1918 they cite excerpts from sixteen cases, of Thus, grand as she was, the new White Star which only three could be reasonably described vessel created less public stir than her sister as commenting on the mode of life of beneficia- Olympic had months earlier. Neither, in any case, ries: One of these was suspended for three months generated the excitement that Adriatic had when, because of habitual drunkenness. Another was a in 1907, she became the first major liner to call a widow struck off the rolls because she had not job-starved Southampton home. Indeed, it was the been supported by her late husband for some two promise of work, much more than the size or years prior to 1912. There may be evidence to appointments of the ships per se, that captured the support the authors on this issue, but that which imagination of Sotonians: Given high unemploy- is presented here is slim and ambiguous. Still, to ment in the area, competition for jobs on the balk at this is to complain about a minor detail in liners was fierce, and was not a whit affected by a book otherwise eminently readable, lovingly Titanic's loss. Indeed, the port continued to grow produced and in all ways a better look at the in importance until the advent of trans-Atlantic jet Titanic disaster than that offered by Bryceson. service, and several survivors among Titanic's crew worked Cunard vessels well into the 1950s. James G. Greenlee All along, of course, the steamers grew larger and Corner Brook, Newfoundland larger so that the "Queens" would have dwarfed Titanic, had she survived. In other words, the David Barron. Northern Shipwrecks Database. disaster had no long-term impact on the general Bedford, NS: Northern Maritime Research, 1997 shape of Southamptons economy or on the rapid [P.O: Box 48047, Bedford, Nova Scotia, Canada shift to seagoing leviathans plying the No rth B4A 3Z2]: CD-ROM. Minimum requirements: Atlantic route: True, impo rtant safety lessons 386 PC with 2 Mb RAM, CD-ROM drive and were learned and applied, but faith in and enthusi- monochrome monitor with DOS 3.2, Windows asm for technology survived April 1912. It is 3.x or Windows 95; MAC computers using a surprising, therefore, that the authors of this book DOS card or the Soft Windows program. $95, fall back on the unqualified hubris theme, at least personal use copy; $500 for institutional or earlier in the book. business use. At the heart of the volume, of course, lie the "voices" of those who witnessed the construction, Perhaps it is inevitable that book reviews should provisioning and last hours of Titanic: Much of now regularly encompass CD-ROMs: The North- the oral and written evidence is now familiar fare, ern Shipwrecks Database falls into this category. but a good deal is unique to this book. Strongest A private venture by the amateur marine archae- of all are the voices of the crew, so many of ologist, author and publisher David Barron, who whom were Sotonians. It is at this level that the has written a number of self-published works, personal loss and psychological damage of the including Atlantic Diver Guide: Volume I, New- Book Reviews 1 01 foundland and St: Pierre, this database of more as addresses, telephone and fax numbers, but all than 65,000 ships electronically incorporates his the references by which Barron built his lists as earlier compiled shipwreck lists with other well. These are very useful for additional re- sources to provide a mass of information on search, and consist of a list of nearly four hundred North American shipwrecks north of the fortieth sources, many of which are secondary publica- parallel latitude. While his data on individual tions though some are primary sources, such as wrecks is not always complete because of source newspapers and Lloyd's Register. The references limitations, nevertheless a surprising amount does are indiscriminate in the sense that they include exist and is included here. This impressive collec- both popular and scholarly sources. Some lead tion, the only one of its kind of this magnitude to one to existing collections, like the US Coast my knowledge, is a boon to anyone interested in Guard database: Yet it is also clear that some the history of shipwrecks: sources are not mentioned, such as Marine Cou rt The data are organized as follows: Upon and Admiralty records, suggesting that more entering the program, the user is requested to systematic research still needs to be done. select an area of North America: wrecks of the The software is generally easy to use, though eastern region (e.g., the Atlantic), the central not always perfect. In scrolling down the refer- region (e.g., the Great Lakes), and the western ence list and then examining a specific reference region (e.g:, the Pacific): Next, the researcher in detail, I found myself returned to the beginning selects the nature of the record. Under Menu #1, of the menu rather than continuing where I left off the data are organized by date of loss, name of on the list. This is a minor annoyance that could vessel, region of loss, area of loss, more detailed easily be modified. More problematic, probably area, and latitude and longitude: This, for exam- for copyright reasons, Barron has restricted the ple, allows one to study a list of all shipwrecks use of this data to "Read Only." This means that occurring in 1830, or to go directly to a specific extracting information for cross-reference and shipwreck. Determining precisely where vessels statistical purposes is a cumbersome process. were lost may require some searching around; In short, Barrons database is a considerable again, the data are only as good as the source accomplishment and valuable to student and material. Thus, when requesting information on scholar alike. Only five hundred copies are avail- Cape Ray, a well-known site for shipwrecks, able, and the price is not cheap: In times of fiscal surprisingly nothing came up. This second edition restraint, smaller institutions like my own would of the CD-ROM, however, like the first edition, balk at purchasing one. However, for those will be upgraded as outside researchers contribute interested in maritime history and who can afford their additional findings to Barron. A regular mail it, I suggest that the money would be well spent. and e-mail address are provided for that purpose: Often, the amount of information supplied Rainer Baehre for individual wrecks is substantial, certainly for Corner Brook, Newfoundland later periods: For example, I was interested in the wreck of the Harpooner, stranded in gale and fog E.A. Bik. 'Met man en muis:.:' Uitspraken van de on 10 November 1816, on the Newfoundland Raad voor de Scheepvaart 1909-1997. Amster- coast at St. Shotts, of the Cape Pine area and in dam: De Bataafsche Leeuw, 1997: 176 pp:, the Cape Race region. After looking up the name, illustrations, photographs, charts, illustrations, the format is tabular, providing the official wreck glossary, notes, indices. f 59, -/1180 Bfr, cloth; number, the name, the date, the cause, the type of ISBN 90-6707-439-X: ship, its registration, its port of origin and destina- tion, its cargo, size of vessel, the owners and The Raad voor de Scheepvaart (Marine Cou rt of captains name, where it was built, and so on. Inquiry) was established in The Netherlands in It is also possible to check wrecks under 1909. It is an independent institute. When a Recall Menu 112 by port of registry, place built, shipping accident has occurred, the cou rt decides builder, owner, captain or master. A third menu whether or not to hold an inquiry, based on the provides not only indispensable information for results of the preceding investigations by the contacting museums and other institutions, such Scheepvaartinspectie (Shipping Inspectorate) or 102 The Northern Mariner

the Rijkspolitie-te-water (River Harbour Po- Brian Cuthbertson. John Cabot and the Voyage of lice): The purpose of the courts inquiry is to the Matthew: Living History in Colour. Halifax: establish whether a person is to blame for the Formac Publishing, 1997: 72 pp., photographs, accident and to see if any lessons may be derived illustrations, select bibliography, index: $16.95, from it: The cou rt will reach a verdict after hear- paper; ISBN 0-88780-416-0. ing all parties concerned and after having studied the relevant reports, documents, etc.. The court is As the dean of St. Johns broadcasters, Paul Moth entitled to take disciplinary action against a recently observed that it may be time to put Cabot captain or any other ships officer who has been behind us. Before we do, we might well take a found guilty. All findings of the cou rt are pub- look at Cuthbertsons colourful booklet — proba- lished in the Staatsblad, which is the gazette of bly the last of the brief, commemorative, illus- the central government: trated volumes that will reach the bookstalls The core of the court consists of a chairman during this anniversary: This Nova Scotia histor- (a member of the judicature) and two members, a ian sets out to place John Cabot and his adven- former master mariner and a former naval officer: tures within the context of the late medieval Depending on the case in hand and the expe rtise commercial world of the Mediterranean and required, the chairman may complete the cou rt by Bristol and to make this comprehensible and choosing from some forty potential court-mem- attractive to those with a casual interest in the bers, all of them having expe rt knowledge of past. He is also concerned to defend the case for shipbuilding or ship-owning, navigation, the a Cape Breton landfall, or at least to make sure it fishing industry, the merchant navy, and so on. is heard, amidst the brouhaha at Bonavista and Met man en muis begins with some introduc- the murmur from scholars favouring the Strait of tory remarks, followed by a selection of nine Belle Isle. This Cabot is copiously illustrated cases from the 3,300 that were brought before the with period maps, paintings and colour photo- court during the period I909-1940: Minor com- graphs — all intended, surely, to catch the eye of plaints against ships captains form a relatively the souvenir hunter. large part of these cases — too much liquor, fri- Cuthbertsons slim volume stands up well on volous women and unwise ships officers, ama- the crowded shelf of Cabot quincentenary memo- teurish navigation leading to a stranding, shelling rabilia. 1f the universe unfolds as it should, re- by a German U-boat and horribly bad weather, to maining copies of Bernard Fardys egregious name but a few of the factors which played a role John Cabot will soon be called for pulping. Ian in these cases: Unfortunately, too often the author Wilsons colourful study, John Cabot and the engages more in narration than in analysis of the Matthew, will continue to appeal to those who cases and the courts judgement about them: would like to believe that Bristols mariner dis- The World War II period is left out without covered the United States, but is otherwise of explanation. The third part of the book therefore interest largely for the pictures. The present concerns the years 1946-1997. Ten accidents pass volume is only half the size of Peter Firstbrooks in review, including the sinking of the passenger celebration of The Voyage of the Matthew and M.V. Klipfontein near Maputo (East Africa) in cannot match that memorial volume as a coffee- 1953, caused by false data in the hydrographie table presence. Yet Cuthbertson also brings the charts, the sinking of the cruiseship Prinsendam late-medieval maritime world alive in words and following an engine-room fire (Al aska, 1980), pictures. He manages to stay closer to the facts and the near-disaster of the passenger ship Prins and, in this respect, his book can fairly be com- der Nederlanden as a result of too close a passage pared to Alan Williams scholarly booklet, John along the coast of the Azores island Flores Cabot and Newfoundland, written for the New- (1966). Here, too, the character of the book is foundland Historical Society. marred by its descriptive rather than analytical Although there is plenty of eye-candy here, character. There is a series of nice illustrations. this Nova Scotian Cabot is not entirely successful as a picture book: Images of Genoa, Venice and Leo M. Akveld Bristol are welcome and striking, as are photo- Rotterdam, The Netherlands graphs of Colin Mudies Matthew, but must we Book Reviews 103 have two hackneyed paintings of Cabots depar- the question in historiographical context. He per- ture? Or Prince Philip twice, let alone once? suasively argues that over the centuries varying Some images are hazy and a view of Lisbon is national traditions and competing nationalisms almost totally obscure. The layout is erratic: white have shaped the landfall issue. Pope calls for a space has been squandered, so that the reader too reconsideration of the very idea of discovery. often wonders what is caption and what is text: In his first four chapters, Pope reviews what This is unfortunate, as many of the images here we know about John Cabot and his 1497 voyage, are fresh: the role Johns son, Sebastian, played in engen- The text is of more consistent quality: dering centuries-long confusion, and the likely Cuthbertson offers an interesting perspective on landfalls from Labrador to southwestern Nova the cartography of the period and on the travel Scotia. This review, however, is shaped by Popes literature with which the Venetian mariner might belief that Cabot reached the No rth American have been familiar. The late medieval Europe mainland via Greenland, a revival of Newfound- sketched here is convincing and the author has a lands Bishop Michael Howleys theory pub- sure grasp both of Cabotian documents and lished in 1891: Howley, of course, had Cabot Atlantic geography. He is weakest on Newfound- fetching up at Bonavista, whereas Pope favours land: the early European fishery began inshore Labrador/Strait of Belle Isle. Popes argument and not on the Grand Banks [33]; black spruce rests upon the wind directions given in the John grows far north of Cape Bauld [46]; there is no Day letter (the most impo rtant Cabot document real evidence that Corte Reals captives of 1501 found this century), and his belief that English were Beothuks [50]; and Bishop Howley cannot seamen knew of the traditional Norse trading be called an "avid defender" of a Bonavista route to Greenland. landfall. [61] Yet, within the context of a colour- Whether the result of his northern emphasis ful essay designed to make a good c ase that Cabot or not, Pope almost entirely omits any discussions reached Cape Breton in 1497, these are hardly of Cabots Venetian years, for which we have at important matters. least some reasonably reliable evidence. It was The volume was sponsored in pa rt by the likely as a merchant/seaman in the eastern spice John Cabot Meeting Socie ty, an organization trade that Cabot travelled to Alexandria, and dedicated to the commemoration of Cabots perhaps to Mecca as well, in search of informa- voyages as the beginning of North American/ tion on the origins of the spices so avidly sought European relations. Given this provenance, it is by Europeans. While in Venice, Cabot most curious that Cuthbertson pays little attention to likely learned celestial navigation and how to First Nations. Like most of us, this time around, draw maps and make globes. Instead, Pope sug- he prefers to dwell on the voyage of the Matthew. gests that Cabot learned his seamanship while serving with the Portuguese, but for which he Peter Pope gives us no evidence: Nor does Pope discuss St. Johns, Newfoundland Cabots cosmography and how it differed from that of Columbus. Peter E. Pope. The Many Landfalls of John Popes initial chapters serve as an introduc- Cabot. Toronto, Buffalo and London: Universi ty tion to his thesis for the need to reconsider the of Toronto Press, 1997: xii + 244 pp., illustra- meaning of Cabots 1497 voyage and its conse- tions, maps, notes, index. $50, £37.50, cloth; quences. His starting point is Eric Hobsbawms ISBN 0-8020-0786-4; $17.95, £11.75, paper; concept of the `invention of tradition which Pope ISBN 0-8020-7150-3. applies to the landfall debate at the time of the four hundredth anniversary Cabot celebrations. Of the books published as pa rt of the quincente- What he finds is that Canadian and Newfound- nary of Cabots voyage in the Matthew, Peter land historians practised a nationalistic selectivity Popes The Many Landfalls of John Cabot stands of evidence, which allowed them to invent com- out as the most original and significant contribu- peting traditions on Cabots landfall. For such tion to Cabotian literature. Pope goes well beyond English Canadian nationalists as Samuel Dawson the endless discussion of Cabots landfall to treat (at the time the Queens Printer for Canada), it 104 The Northern Mariner was necessary for Cabot to have landed on main- and invented traditions forget that European land Canada: As Columbus had not sighted discovery has not meant possession of an unin- mainland until his third voyage of 1898, in the habited continent, but a conquest with dreadful words of the Reverend Moses Harvey (a St. consequences for Native societies. Johns Presbyterian minister), Cabot merited the honour of the "man who first opened Northern Brian Cuthbertson America to European civilization." [91] For Halifax, Nova Scotia English Canadian nationalists, Cabot also served to uphold English discovery in competition with Gang Deng. Chinese Maritime Activities and French Canadas veneration for Jacques Cartier: Socioeconomic Development, c:2100 B:C: - 1900 In the case of Newfoundland, the notion of a A:D:. Westport, CT: Greenwood Press, 1997. mainland landfall was, of course, an anathema for xxvi + 218 pp., illustrations, tables, maps, figures, those dauntless defenders of Bonavista, Bishop appendices, references, index. US $65, cloth; Michael Howley and Judge Daniel Prowse: On ISBN 0-313-29212-4: the Canadian side, Dawson just as vehemently upheld Cape Breton. Scholars have long thought that China had little Within Newfoundland, a competition devel- in the way of a maritime tradition. The various oped between Judge Daniel Prowses British dynasties are depicted as ruling over quintessen- North American nationalism and Bishop Michael tial land-based tributary empires. The voyages of Howleys appeals to specific Newfoundland Zheng He in the early fifteenth century have been sentiment: Virtually single-handedly, Prowse saw much discussed, and modern studies have delin- through the construction of Cabot Tower on eated large-scale movements of Chinese to south- Signal Hill overlooking St. Johns and which east Asia: Much of the rest of Chinas four thou- Pope suggests best represents the triumph of sand years of maritime activity is little known. Prowses version of Newfoundland nationalism. One of Dr. Dengs aims is to rectify this Certainly, Prowses Cabot Tower outdid the misperception and show that in fact the Middle Canadian nationalists, who could do no better Kingdom had a very long and illustrious history than a plaque unveiling at Province House in of seafaring. Halifax. Out of these fierce nineteenth-century To support this claim his book covers a debates, whose origins lay in competing national- variety of areas, in all cases taking a very long isms, arose what Pope calls the invented tradi- view indeed: After an introductory chapter to set tions for the Bonavista and Cape Breton landfalls. the historical and geographic scene, the author In penetrating further into Cabot mythology, gives a detailed account of Chinese maritime Pope examines the changing meaning of discov- technology. After early advances, he finds that ery as a political act. Discovery of new lands in from the late thirteenth century there was little Cabots day meant to reconnoitre them or to make innovation in nautical technology: The famous them manifest to Europeans: They assumed these great ships of Zheng He were based on centuries- lands to be inhabited. Cabot and Columbus hoped old designs, while China contributed very little to reach Asia where they would find the great other than the compass to the worlds knowledge cities and wealth of which Marco Polo had so of navigational techniques. The author then turns vividly written. Only later did the act of discovery to the matter of the supply of ships, that is, how come to mean land first seen and be associated many there were, and delineates the various types with taking possession. Popes exploration of this of maritime commerce in which the Chinese change in meaning and consequences for Native engaged. He stresses that sea trade provided very societies of "Atlantic Asymmetry" form for this good livings for the approximately two percent of reader the most interesting sections of the book. the population who engaged in this activity. It was this asymmetry that made European con- Chapter Five discusses markets and trade pat- quest possible: In his conclusion, Pope chastises terns, and explains in detail why China in the the attempt during the 1997 celebrations to re- nineteenth century fell behind, becoming, in a move the D[iscovery}-word. He reminds us that pattern very familiar for Asia at this time, a mere we should not in the name of political correctness exporter of raw materials: The final chapter Book Reviews 105

covers urbanisation, migration and the dissemina- and always informed by a strong background in tion of technology. economics. It belongs in any library concerned The second theme of this book is to explain with maritime history, or with the history of why China failed to keep pace with the West. The China: hoary chestnut of "Confucian values" as an obsta- cle to growth is briskly dismissed. Rather, using M.N. Pearson path dependency theory, he mostly follows Mark Lennox Head, Australia Elvins influential notion of an "equilibrium trap," that is, that China reached a ce rtain level and then Halil Inalcik; Victor Ostapchuk (volume ed.). no longer had any particular need to innovate: Sources and Studies on the Ottoman Black Sea: After about the thirteenth century, in both the Volume I: The Customs Register of Caffa, 1487- dominant agrarian sector and also in the maritime 1490. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, one, China had quantitative growth but was in a 1997. xi + 201 + XXV pp., illustrations, index, qualitative standstill: [xiii] Indeed, it seems that map, appendices. US $39:95, paper; ISBN 0- the maritime sector, being small and somewhat 916458-82-2. peripheral in the total economy, suffered from this more than did the agricultural sector. This volume deals with the oldest extant O ttoman This book is certainly a courageous under- custom duffer, or finance record, from Caffa, in taking. Dr. Deng has used a vast array of sources, the south-eastern Crimea of the northern Black most of them of course in Chinese. His arguments Sea region. It was compiled in 1485, ten years are copiously documented, and as an economic after the Ottoman conquest of Caffa. This particu- historian, he is keen to quantify wherever this is lar type of duffer listed only arrears of custom possible. Sometimes indeed he seems to quantify dues of the po rt of Caffa. Nevertheless, it is just for the sake of it. He works out that maritime unique in its impo rtance for the study of the port merchants had a thirty percent share of the coun- of Caffa and the Black Sea trade system between trys total gross national product. [101] Readers 1487 and 1490. It supplies rich data about the more numerate than I will be able to evaluate the goods, merchants and ship-owners and the routes equation which underlies this claim, but on the by which these commodities were brought into face of it, it seems quite extraordinary, if only in Caffa and distributed from its po rt. light of the fact that only two percent of Chinas The volume is divided into three parts, population participated in maritime activities, beginning with an introduction to the characteris- while eighty percent were in the agricultural tics of similar account books and a comparison of sector. [161] Another rather pointless exercise the present register to dufters of the sixteenth claims to show that it is possible that over the century from other parts of the Ottoman Empire: next five hundred years the Hui Muslim popula- It also deals with the tax farmers and scribes indi- tion could become larger than the Han. [155] cated by the present drafter. There is a text in It may be that Middle Kingdom ethnocen- arabic, a translation, and an index of the text. trism contributed to Chinas relatively undistin- The second part contains several essays guished oceanic performance; on occasion Dr: which examine the Ottoman Black Sea economy Deng veers towards such attitudes. He claims that from the late fifteenth century until the second China was at the top of the "pan-Asian trading half of the eighteenth century. During this period ring" but this is to ignore a long history of copi- the Black Sea became a thriving O ttoman lake: ous trade from India. [113, and also 132] Simi- The first and the longest essay deals with the larly, to say that the Chinese commercial fleet to Ottoman customs systems, focusing on that of Manila was responsible for the prosperity of the Caffa and Kilia, which was situated on one of the Philippines is true as far as it goes, but of course northern branches of the Danubian delta on the the other side of this trade, bullion from America, western coast of the Black Sea: The documents needs also to be considered: [149] relating to Kilia demonstrate the application of Despite these mild criticisms, this book is Ottomanization and imperial standardization very much to be recommended. It is comprehen- according to local conditions and circumstances sive, challenging, on many subjects authoritative, in the period 1484-1570. This essay also dis- 106 The Northern Mariner cusses the Ottoman principles of trade, rates and Donald H. Akenson. If The Irish Ran The World: organization, comparing them to those of the Montserrat, 1630-1730. Montréal Kingston: Byzantine period. The author concludes this essay McGill-Queens Universi ty Press, 1997. xi + 273 by summarizing the process which transformed pp:, tables, maps, appendices, notes, bibliogra- the Black Sea into an Ottoman lake: This began phy, index. $55, cloth; ISBN 0-7735-1630-1; with the gradual extension of control over naviga- $22.95, paper; ISBN 0-7735-1686-7. tion both through the straits and on the Black Sea between the second half of the fifteenth century Donald Akenson begins his book by expressing and the late sixteenth Century. In the 1590s the a sympathy for counterfactual historical questions Ottomans closed the Black Sea to inte rnational and then posing the one implied by his title: "So, trade: The next essay deals with the captains and what if the Irish had controlled more of the world shipowners, including their origin and their in the modern era, say from the Protestant refor- itineraries according to the dufter of Caffa. It is mation onward? How would they have acted?" [4] clear that Caffa continued to trade with the small We should perhaps ask whether this question is ports in the Black Sea, that itineraries remained more interesting than similar ones that could be consistently the same, and that the type of asked about other groups in other places — the commodities did not ch ange. The third essay lists Scots, say, or the Welsh: That it likely is more the imported and exported goods in Caffa, ac- interesting to many readers, of Irish ethnicity or cording to the duller, followed by another list of not, probably reflects the widespread currency of imports to the Crimea in 1750: Yet another sho rt what Akenson calls "Irish essentialism," the con- chapter concerns the production and export of scious or unconscious acceptance of the notion grain from the Crimea and its dependencies that there is something special about the Irish: between the late sixteenth century and the second In searching for evidence bearing on his half of the eighteenth: A list of impo rts and question, Akenson dismisses the modern history exports at Kilia is provided, taken from the local of the Irish state as too much a product of parti- customs register of March-September 1505. From tion and partition-related policies to be a fair the late fourteenth century and through much of example. He then considers nineteenth-century the fifteenth, Kilia, like Caffa, was in the hands of central Canada, going so far as to suggest that the the Genoese, who controlled most of the m aritime civility of present-day Ontario is owing to a exchanges between the Black Sea and Europe: strong Irish influence. However, Akenson writes, Without question it would have been interesting the Canadian case is too complex and its histori- to make a thorough comparative study between cal literature too vast to permit concise summary. the documents of both periods. The second part of And, since this book took first form as the Joanne the book closes with a discussion of the trade of Goodman Lectures at the University of Western Ottoman Kers [modern Kerch], situated on the Ontario, we must concede the need for brevity. strait connecting the Black Sea and the Sea of So Akensons choice of an historical context Azov, according to the regulation issued in Caffa where pure Irishness might express itself clearly in 1542. This regulation concerned exports, is Montserrat from 1630 to 1730. Montserrat, a custom duties, passage dues and market dues: small British dependency in the Leeward Islands The third part of the book consists of appen- of the Caribbean, was largely settled by Irish dices, including tables and documents that shed people during that period. Using Akensons light on Ottoman economic and administrative metaphor, Montserrat is the bonsai to nineteenth- life on the Black Sea frontier: Undoubtedly the century Ontarios sequoia: Small in size (thirty- weights and measures, Ottoman and Crimean nine square miles) and small in population (some currency and the glossary with its detailed treat- 4500 people in 1678, the majority white and the ment on the items of trade will alone make this a majority of them Irish), Montserrat at this time valuable reference for the studying of O ttoman appears capable of being comprehended, if not Trade and its documentation. completely because of limited historical records, then at least in its putative Irish essence. Ruthi Gertwagen The bulk of Akensons book is thus a de- Haifa, Israel scription of the early days of Montserrat, of the Book Reviews 107 time when it was a genuine colony and the major- but themselves is untenable on its face. There are ity of inhabitants were voluntary émigrés. One clearly many differences between the Irish-On- emphasis is an analysis of ethnicity using census tario sequoia and the Irish-Montse rrat bonsai data and Akenson convincingly demonstrates that other than size. Montserrat could not only be said to be Irish at Akensons final chapter, entitled "Usable this time but indeed was then the most Irish of Traditions," examines the question of whether any overseas polity. As well, however, there are there are any significant remnants of the Irish in descriptions, inter many alia, of Montserrats present-day Montserrat. (It is unfortunately early government and laws, how a sugar (and possible that soon there may not be remnants of slave) economy gradually developed, and how the anybody in present-day Montserrat since as I largely Catholic Irish and those of the Established write the island is under threat of volcanic erup- Church lived with each other. tion, the population has been reduced by two This part of the book appeals against easy thirds to less than 4000, and total evacuation has summary: Despite limited sources, Akenson is not been ruled out.) He concludes that there are able to invest his account with a richness of detail no such remnants, and refers, for example, to the and appreciation of idiosyncrasy that would not conclusion of an eminent linguist that the only survive a reviewers précis. Consider the story of word in Montserrat English of clearly Irish origin "Indian" Warner, illegitimate son of Sir Thomas is the one which refers to a female goat. Warner (founder of the nearby St: Christopher I know Montserrat well and, apart from the colony) and a Carib slave who led Carib raids Tourist Board, few there take seriously the idea against Montserrat and Antigua in the 1670s. that the Irish bequeathed anything to Montserrat " Indian" Warner was almost hanged by William other than surnames and place-names, though Stapleton, governor of the Leeward Islands and a there is a harp on the flag, a shamrock over the former deputy governor of Montserrat, because door of the Governors mansion, and an annual Stapleton blamed him for the murder on celebration on St: Patricks day (which, in fact, Montserrat of Thomas Russel, one of Stapletons commemorates the slave rebellion on March 17, in-laws. "Indian" Warner was saved from hanging 1768). Akensons interest here, I think, results by the intervention of his legitimate half-brother, from his obvious affection for Montse rrat and his Thomas Warner, deputy governor of Antigua, but disdain for the argument that an island lucky was later killed during a punitive raid on Caribs enough to have been Irish for one hundred years in Dominica led by the same half-brother. would not be so ungrateful as to have lost its It seems like an afterthought when, against Irishness. He wonders with characteristic felicity this kind of background, Akenson returns to the whether such a fiction might nevertheless benefit question implied in his title. If Montse rrat was the island: "Professionally written history may be Irish at this time, was there anything special about more accurate than are invented traditions, but it? The answer is that the Irish on Montserrat usually it is less useful." [186] If the Irish Ran the behaved much as other early colonists (there and World will certainly be useful to any scholar of elsewhere) in matters such as their ownership and the Caribbean or early British settlement. treatment of slaves, their actions when in posi- tions of authority, and their role in the imperial Daniel Stewart expansions of the time. I found Akenson curious- Corner Brook, Newfoundland ly diffident in this conclusion; surely not because it lacks the support of historical evidence, but Joseph C. Miller. Way of Death: Merchant Capi- perhaps because the evidence undermines the talism and the Angolan Slave Trade 1730-1830. methodological premise of his book — that Mont- Madison: University of Wisconsin Press, 1988. serrat might serve as a small laboratory specimen xxx + 770 pp., maps, figures, appendices, biblio- of Irishness from which the essence of the Irish graphy, index. US $21.95, paper; ISBN 0-299- might be distilled. His description of Montserrats 11564-X. Irish in their unique particularity and his evoca- tion of the time, place, and circumstance are so Joseph Millers 1988 monumental history of the vivid that any notion that they exemplify anyone Angolan slave trade in the eighteenth and early 108 The Northern Mariner nineteenth centuries is widely acknowledged as which they depended; and, finally, the shippers one of the key products of the intense debate on and supercargos responsible for the often inhu- slavery and slave trade that had started in the late man conditions of the trans-oceanic transpo rt: 1960s and continued until the early 90s: The Part 2 concludes with the slaves perspective of recent paperback edition of the massive text is the the voyage to America, from the moment of best testimony to its enduring scholarly value. enslavement, through the ever-lengthening trek to Miller employs the concept of merchant the coast and the long wait for transpo rt, to the capital as the organizing principle of an enquiry harrowing crossing of the Atlantic: that goes well beyond an exercise in economic Parts 3 and 4 deal with the demand side of and business history implied in the notion of the Angolan slave trade. Brazil, the final destina- merchant capitalism: The book weaves tightly tion of most slaves from West Central Africa is together micro- and macro-history, environmental covered first, followed by an analysis of the and human factors, the longue-durée and the factors at work in metropolitan Portugal, which short term, and local and trans-continental as- had both legislative and capital control over the pects. It tracks the fortunes of both willing and Angolan trade throughout much of the period. unwilling participants in the Angolan slave trade, The Brazilian and Portuguese roles are shown to and discusses the factors, interests, and socio- have followed divergent trajectories: while the cultural attitudes which supported it: The result is Brazilian involvement intensified and strength- notably enhanced by Millers concerted effo rt to ened in the late eighteenth and early nineteenth capture not only the impersonal economic reali- centuries, the Portuguese hold weakened despite ties but also the human dimension of this impor- attempts to reverse the process: In the closing tant segment of Atlantic history: The work repre- chapters of each section, Miller explores the sents a fine contribution to Atlantic history, a complex interplay of Brazilian, Portuguese and field which has recently gained autonomy in British financial, shipping, and political interests acknowledgment of the role of the Atlantic as a during the Abolition era. connecting rather than a separating space. This The concluding segment, "The Economics of shift has begun to remedy the sometimes unpro- Mortality," ties together the two key concepts ductive division of labour among Europeanists, highlighted in the books title: the high human Africanists, and Americanists: cost of the Angolan slave trade and the economic The book opens in Part 1 with an innovative forces that fueled it: While many contemporaries and rich reconstruction of the physical and human were clearly aware of the high mortality and environment of West Central Africa. Here are social costs of the Atl antic crossing, a multiplicity provided crucial keys to the demography and of overriding economic and political interests not political economy of enslavement and slave only prevented them from ameliorating the trading, in particular where the role of humans as slaves condition, but often caused them to make economic and socio-political capital is concerned. the system more brutal than necessary: Part 2 deals with the organization and logistics of In his Preface, Miller had expressed regret at the trans-Atlantic slave trade: The opening seg- having been unable to research the parts dealing ment discusses the adaptations needed to make Portugal and Brazil in the same depth as those on existing transport and exchange mechanisms suit Angola itself. [xxii] While to the reader this point the needs of the Atlantic slave trade. The subse- might appear excessively self-effacing, it is quent chapters introduce the four key groups probably in these two geographical areas that the responsible for the movement of slaves from books findings will soon become only a stepping Africa to the Americas: the African suppliers; the stone, albeit a very solid and indispensable one, Luso-Africans, sandwiched between foreign for future research. As a whole, however, the merchant capital and local African interests while book cannot be easily surpassed. The sheer serving as a crucial link between the two; the volume of new information, derived both from expatriate Portuguese and Brazilian slave traders printed sources and from extensive archival in Luanda, the Angolan capital, who found them- research in Portugal, Brazil and Angola, would by selves at risk both from the environment and the itself ensure its longevity: Way of Death also powerful metropolitan business interests on possesses, however, lasting value as an innova- Book Reviews 109 tive interpretation of a complex and difficult number of tables that provide his estimates of chapter in the history of the Atlantic basin: Real- yearly death rates in total, by origin or location, istic, meticulously documented, well organized, by gender, over time, etc:. In a number of cases, and accessibly written, the book has much to Shlomowitz uses regression analysis to examine offer both to area specialists and the scholarly the correlates of mortality rates. Yet the empirical community in general. aspects do not overwhelm the essays; the material is easily accessible to those not empirically Ivana Elbl inclined: In many of the earlier essays, Peterborough, Ontario Shlomowitz is better at providing data on mortal- ity than explanations. His later work, however, Ralph Shlomowitz, with L ance Brennan and John more explicitly considers factors leading to dif- McDonald: Mortality and Migration in the Mod- ferences in mortality among groups. ern World: Collected Studies Series; Aldershot, The major cause of mortality for migrants Hamps. Brookfield, VT: Variorum, 1996. x + was disease. Individuals who moved often en- 339 pp., tables, map, US $94.95, cloth; ISBN 0- tered an environment that contained diseases for 86078-596-3. which they had no immunity, thus causing death at a higher than normal rate. The number of Since the 1969 publication of Philip Curtins The deaths depended on the origins of the migrants, Atlantic Slave Trade, which revisited the question their age, and the severity of the new disease of mortality on slave ships, historians have begun environment: Indian migrants to Assam and examining the mortality suffered by other groups Malaya died at a high rate, at least partly due to of migrants. Shlomowitz has provided major em- the presence of cholera and malaria in these areas: pirical contributions to this field through his Those working in the more benign disease envi- research on a number of non-slave groups who ronments of Fiji and Natal, on the other hand, migrated during the nineteenth and early twenti- experienced fewer deaths. Migrants to Australia eth centuries: This book is a collection of fifteen died at even lower rates; in fact, adults sailing of his essays that were published between 1987 after 1854 were the first group whose death rate and 1994: The essays examine mortality suffered was similar to that of non-migrants: Particularly both by groups on the sailing ships and in their interesting are Shlomowitz findings concerning new location. Three of the essays examine migra- infant and child mortality. These results support tion to Australia; nine consider Indian migration work on European immigrants to the United to a variety of destinations; two examine Pacific States showing that the ocean voyage was partic- Islanders; and one considers liberated African ularly hard on the young. Though Shlomowitz slaves. While a number of the essays explicitly explores various reasons for this result, no defini- compare the findings with other work, tive explanation is provided. Shlomowitz also provides an introductory chapter For virtually every migrant group, the author to the collection: finds that mortality rates declined over time. He Shlomowitz approach to studying mortality argues that the fall in mortality illustrates the is decidedly empirical. Since most of the migra- effectiveness of various government controls tions he examined were completed under the adopted. In a number of his essays, Shlomowitz auspices of the British government, a great deal shows that mortality declined at points in time of information was collected at the time. when the government changed selection proce- Shlomowitz has compiled these data from a dures or instituted improvements in the treatment variety of primary sources, ranging from the of migrants, their working conditions, or in British Parliamentary Papers to publications and sanitation. Shlomowitz argument provides a archives in Fiji and India. In each essay, valuable counterweight to some students of the Shlomowitz discusses the data problems that may slave trade, who suggest that the extremely high bias his results. Usually, the biases are not serious mortality of slaves was completely a consequence but, in a few cases, he uses data even when it is of them entering new disease environments when not clear that they are sufficiently accurate to traveling to the African coast, waiting in the slave support his results. Each essay includes a large barracoons, sailing on the ships, or living in a 110 The Northern Mariner new area. Shlomowitz message is that the gov- done without also bringing in the West Indies and ernments and slavers involved in the slave trade the colonies which, after the Revolution, became were partially responsible for the high death rates. British North America (that they refer to them The finding that government controls were effec- collectively as "Canada" is, however, an ominous tive in decreasing mortality also bears on one of sign). Unfortunately, the sentiment behind such a the major mortality controversies in demography. broad definition is not matched by the execution, The fall in mortality within countries during the especially in dealing with the colonies north of latter part of the nineteenth century has been New England: alternately credited to improvements in nutrition In a brief review, it is not possible to exam- or public health measures: Shlomowitz work ine in any detail the interpretations in the individ- provides support for the importance of the latter ual essays: Instead, I want to focus on the mari- factor. time aspects in four of them: The volume begins Shlomowitz has put together a valuable with Neal Salisburys survey of the economic book: As one who read these essays when origi- history of native Americans. Although all the nally written, I was impressed with the strength of essays were written more or less in isolation, his the entire body of work. I strongly recommend choice of main themes sets the stage for what is to this book to anyone interested in reading high come: The focus is decidedly land-based, which quality recent work on the mortality of migrants. diminishes the m aritime side of the story: Indeed, it is only in the section of the fur trade that Salis- Raymond L. Cohn bury brings in the maritime dimension. The Normal, Illinois important maritime activities of the various native peoples, both pre- and post-European arrival, are Stanley L. Engerman and Robe rt E. Gallman virtually ignored: Readers interested in what (eds.). The Cambridge Economic History of the Salisbury might have done should consult the United States, Volume I: The Colonial Era. seminal essays in Charles A. Martijn (red.), Les Cambridge, UK and New York: Cambridge Micmacs et la mer (Montreal, 1986). University Press, 1997. xi + 481 pp., maps, Equally disappointing from a maritime tables, figures, bibliographical essays, index: US perspective is John Thomtons essay on "The $74.95, cloth; ISBN 0-521-39442-2. African Background to American Colonization:" The focus here is on Africa rather than on either Over the years, the various Cambridge Economic the slave trade or the lives of Africans in Amer- Histories have carved out an enviable niche in the ica. As such, it is a useful corrective to much of scholarly world: Designed to make synthetic the writing on the trade, albeit a paper that could interpretations, debates and analyses available in have done more with maritime issues. The "mid- convenient form to a broad range of scholars and dle passage" from Africa to America remains a students, they have become the benchmark little understood part of the process, except for against which similar enterprises must be mea- the increasing number of works that deal with the sured. With a few notable exceptions, volumes in appalling mortality rates: It would have been the various series have achieved these aims useful for Thornton to have dealt with this seg- admirably. But the current book — the first in a ment of the "African diaspora:" three-volume series on the United States — pre- Better is John J. McCuskers chapter on sents more of a dilemma. If judged on the basis of "British Mercantilist Policies and the American scholarly attainment, the various essays are all Colonies." The implementation of mercantilism competent pieces of work. But if viewed from the required constraints on trade, which in effect perspective of maritime history — a not unreason- meant restrictions on shipping. But, as McCusker able criterion given the marine nature of much rightly notes, it also gave an impo rtant boost to early economic activity in No rth America — it is American shipping, which by the time of the decidedly less satisfactory: Revolution comprised a significant share of the This collection of ten essays surveys eco- British Empire fleet: The special strength of nomic change in America up to 1800. Signifi- McCuskers contribution — typical of all his work cantly, the editors decided that this could not be — is the bibliographic completeness: Although Book Reviews 111 the conditions of the volume limit notes and to an observer of the Dutch East India Company: bibliographic references, McCusker manages to But shipping interests in the mother countries circumvent this better than any other contributor. protected their privileges successfully and dis- The undoubted beneficiary of this is the reader. couraged the rise of a large-scale shipbuilding The best essay in the book, however, is industry overseas: Only towards the end of the Daniel Vickers study of "The Northern Colonies: eighteenth century did the EIC have some of the Economy and Society, 1600-1775," which also ships required for the Bombay marine and its happens to be the most explicitly maritime. While country trade built in India. Changing circum- much of the essay deals with landward activities, stances at the end of that century, however, gave a splendid ten-page section on the "seaport econ- rise to a different attitude and led to the develop- omy" should be required reading for all who ment of new shipbuilding activities in Bombay as would understand the maritime basis of colonial well as to a new forest policy and to a regulation America. Vickers main contribution, however, is of the timber trade by the EIC. to put the maritime economy into the proper Michael Mann has written an interesting context. After noting that "many New World book on this subject. He explains how a combina- colonies cleared more ships with larger cargoes of tion of factors — the shortage of timber in Eng- far greater value than did any of the northern land because of the depletion of the English oak seaports," he argues that the merchants who forests and the independence of New England at owned most of the trading vessels "played a vital a time when, because of the Revolutionary and role within the colonial economy but only in Napoleonic wars, a large fleet was needed — concert with the commercial interests of farm and caused the naval authorities in London to turn to craft families:" [238] In short, the maritime econ- hitherto unused resources. The quality of the omy did not exist in isolation but rather was pa rt frigate Cornwallis, which had been built in India of a larger whole: Most of the other authors in for the Bombay Marine and which arrived in this volume would have written far more satisfy- London around 1800, impressed the Admiralty so ing essays had they borne this injunction in mind. much, that the ship was bought by the navy. Soon the Admiralty developed a pl an, an "Experiment," Lewis R. Fischer to have two naval vessels per annum constructed St. Johns, Newfoundland in Bombay — one frigate and one ship of the line: Although this ambitious programme was never Michael Mann. Flottenbau und Forstbetrieb in fully realized, the results were fairly good: in the Indien 1794-1823. Stuttgart: Franz Steiner period 1810-1831 the Bombay dockyards pro- Verlag, 1996: xii + 203 pp:, maps, bibliography, duced twenty-six ships for the Royal Navy (four- appendix, index: DM/sFr 68,- (OS 496,-), soft- teen of them of more than 1200 ton) as well back; ISBN 3-515-06882-1. twenty-one other large ships. Between 1800 and 1820, 218 ships were build in Calcu tta, only four It has always been a remarkable fact that the of which were over 1200 tons. European East India Companies made hardly any The expansion by the EIC of its shipbuilding use of the advantages to be gained by building capacity was possible only if it was matched by a ships in Asia. The arrival of the Europeans in forest policy and timber trade that could provide Asia led to an enormous growth of shipping and the necessary wood for the newly built ships. The trade in Asian waters. European vessels were not most detailed proposals for a coherent forest only employed in the European-Asian trade, but policy were made by Franz (or Francis) von also in the intra-Asian or, as the English called it, Wrede, a German living on the Malabar Coast. the country trade. India had a long tradition and He is a most interesting figure — it would not high standards in shipbuilding, and its teak forests surprise me if he had originally come to India as provided the ideal quality of timber for ships: Yet a servant of the Dutch East India Company — the European companies preferred to build their who based his schemes on contemporary German East lndiamen at home. The English and the methods of foresting. It proved difficult, however, Dutch were quite aware of the excellent quality of to realize all his proposals: An attempt to survey teak ships — they were "as dry as a pot" according all the teakwood resources on the Malabar Coast, 112 The Northern Mariner for instance, was never fully executed: Von The collection includes three outstanding Wrede may have been the first to outline a forest essays on eighteenth-century overseas scientific policy for India that included reproduction and expeditions by Francisco de Solano, Alan Frost, maintaining the resources, but that goal was never and Daniel A: Baugh. In the only essay in the reached, and was certainly out of reach after the volume not written in the English language, dissolution of the Forest Department in 1823. The Solano studied Spanish eighteenth-century scien- Company was more successful in organizing the tific voyages dispatched to fulfill political mo- timber trade, perhaps because it realized that it tives and to achieve other objectives. Beyond the had to depend more on local traders. collection of scientific data and defining the Michael Manns book is a well-balanced limits of Spanish overseas territories, Solano study which gives insight into the way Great identified a strong metropolitan theme of "scien- Britain tried to keep its place in the world during tific conquest" connected with the expeditions. In the turmoil of the Napoleonic wars, in part by many respects, Spaniards learned from the explo- encouraging shipbuilding in India around 1800, rations about their overseas dominions and the as well as through the first attempts by the EIC to Bourbon regime introduced broad administrative formulate a policy for such thing as foresting and reform programmes: After 1820 and the achieve- local timber trade during its transition from a ment of independence in most of its former trading Company into a colonial government. The American empire, the Spanish government aban- book has a short English summary, perhaps too doned its commitment to expeditions dedicated to short to do justice to its contents. scientific discovery. Studying the British scien- tific explorers of the same period, Frost provides Femme S. Gaastra an even more explicit understanding of the rela- Leiden, The Netherlands tionships between science and politics: The immense natural history and ethnographical William K. Storey (ed.). Scientific Aspects of collections returned to Europe by the expeditions European Expansion. Volume 6 of An Expanding of Captains James Cook, George Vancouver, and World: The European Impact on World History other explorers served to cloak political purposes 1450-1800: Aldershot, Hamps. Brookfield, VT: concerned with identifying new resources and Variorum, 1996. xxi + 339 pp., illustrations, viewing the military strength of rivals. Beginning figures, maps, index. US $109.95, cloth; ISBN 0- with the circumnavigation of Admiral George 86078-524-6. Anson (1740-44), the British evolved clear ideas about the promotion of navigation and commerce. The volumes published to date in the Variorum The result produced remarkable collections and series "An Expanding World" seek to make new ideas by scientists such as Joseph Banks and available revisionist interpretations by leading Johann Reinhold Forster. scholars on aspects of the European presence In his essay, Baugh considered retarding overseas. In the present collection, editor William factors that made the seventeenth century (actu- Storey selected sixteen articles and book chapters ally a 120-year period) something of a vacuum by leading scholars that focus upon the role of concerning Pacific Ocean exploration: This was science and technology in cross-cultural relations, followed by an epoch of almost hectic voyaging 1450-1800. Storey sets the scene with essays by to seek valuable commodities, open trade, and to George Basalla and Roy MacLeod that create answer questions about unknown regions. By the models for understanding the diffusion of West- 1760s, the British had developed seapower fac- ern science. In his 1967 essay, Basalla sought to tors behind financial sponsorship of exploration construct a model for the study of cross-cultural to produce what Baugh terms "protective mari- relations connected with modernization theory time imperialism." The race to dispatch scientific that today is quite dated and Eurocentric. Writing expeditions, conflicts over the Falkland Islands, in 1987, MacLeod criticized Basallas views and and the British settlement of Botany Bay under- examined how the pursuit of scientific knowledge scored a head on competition with France and in the English-speaking world became an impor- illustrated that while science was impo rtant, tant element of statecraft. seapower was at the centre of British thinking. Book Reviews 113

The section on cartography and mapping Marsden Hordem. King of the Australian Coast: originated with articles published in the jou rnal The Work of Phillip Parker King in the Mermaid Imago Mundi. First, J.B: Harley examined "carto- and Bathurst 1817-1822. Victoria, Australia: The graphic silences" concerning maps from the Miegunyah Press of Melbou rne University Press, sixteenth century forward, in which some states 1997. xxi + 441 + endjacket charts, plates (col- such as Spain suppressed or censored information our, b+w), maps, appendices, notes, bibliography, while others such as England permitted publica- index: AUS $49.95, cloth; ISBN 0-522-84720-X. tion. Spanish pilots were forbidden the right to sell charts under the penal ty of death and many of For the nautically minded reader this well written the great trading companies of different nations and splendidly presented work offers a feast of maintained secrecy to deter competition. Moving information. It is also a wonderful adventure to non-European cartography, Helen Wallis con- story, equal to any of the more familiar fictional cluded that fifteenth-century Chinese maps were accounts of life at sea in Britains sailing navy. superior to anything available in Europe. Later, While the book deals with a number of Jesuit observers in China failed to appreciate the topics, including hydrography in the early nine- remarkable achievements of Chinese science: For teenth century, social life in colonial New South the New World, Louis De Vorsey and G. Wales, the biographies of the principal characters, Malcolm Lewis discuss Amerindian contributions botanical and geographical features of Australia to North American mapping. and much else besides, its main purpose is to Storey included several essays that deal with retell, using original sources, the story of four contacts between Western and Easte rn science. surveying voyages made along the north and John M. de Figueiredo surveyed the cross-cultural northwestern coasts of Australia between 1817 exchange of medical knowledge between India and 1822. These areas were only imperfectly and Portugal in the sixteenth and seventeenth cen- known in 1817, despite the work of Cook, turies: While the practitioners of Ayurvedic medi- Flinders and the French navigator, Baudin. cine steeped in Hinduism encountered resistance The British government had several reasons and prejudices from Portuguese medical practitio- to order such a survey: The French were taking a ners, over time some Europeans came to recog- renewed interest in the area, the increasing ship- nize that indigenous medical knowledge was ping traffic using the Torres Strait route from often more effective than European techniques. Sydney to India required accurate charts of such Other essays treat the importation of Western highly dangerous waters, and there was the need Science into Japan, China, and the O ttoman to settle the question of whether a river or deep Empire. The Japanese at first embraced European gulf would allow access to the unknown interior science and technology during the Tokugawa of the continent. The command of the enterprise period before turning to exclusion policies that was given to Lieutenant Phillip Parker King, son left Nagasaki as the only po rt open to the world. of the third governor of New South Wales and As is common in volumes of selected essays, destined later to be a major participant in the life some transitions are difficult and a few chapters of that colony: To assist him he had two skilled may not be useful to all readers. From the aspect junior officers and a botanist. The first three of chronology, it is disconcerting that the first few voyages were conducted in the cu tter Mermaid, a essays deal with the latter part of the period. Only new vessel, fifty-six feet overall, built of teak in after treating maritime themes connected with the Calcutta: The last trip was in the 170 ton brig eighteenth century does Storey turn back to the Bathurst, which was spacious, even luxurious, previous centuries for selections on cartography compared with her predecessor. Both vessels and contacts with indigenous sciences. Still, this were purchased by the governor from private is a useful compilation, and the section on owners and fitted out at government expense. eighteenth-century scientific expeditions is of Navigating a small sailing vessel close to the special interest to maritime historians. shore along the heavily indented northern coast- line through uncharted reef-strewn waters was a Christon I. Archer nightmare with its constant threats to the ships Calgary, Alberta survival. King enjoyed phenomenal luck in 114 The Northern Mariner escaping disaster, although discipline and sea- A.G:E. Jones. The Greenland and Davis Strait manship also contributed to his survival. The Trade, 1740-1880, from Lloyd's Register of narrowest escape, however, was from a classic lee Shipping and the Register of the Socie ty of Mer- shore situation, largely of his own making, when chants, Ship-Owners and Underwriters. only a few miles south of Sydney at the end of a Oakington, Cambr:: Bluntisham Books, 1996 long voyage: For suspense, fear and horror, his [100 copies printed for the author; orders to: Mr. own account [257] rivals anything to be found in S.G: Brown, 24 Orchard Way, Oakington, Cam- maritime fiction. Much technical information, bridge CB4 5BQ, UK]. xxxiii + 230 pp., indices. particularly concerning the handling and mainte- £25, US $40, cloth; ISBN 1-871999-08-1. nance of a sailing vessel in a variety of difficult situations, emerges from the narrative and its It is necessary to state up front that I find trouble- footnotes: Modern sailors will surely find this some the publication of any statistical list which aspect of the book of great interest. In addition to purports to be comprehensive. For one thing, the the almost daily d anger of shipwreck, King faced time and effo rt required to identify fully a mari- many problems that had to be solved without any time industry which is large in scale, wide in outside assistance. Some, such as encounters with scope and long-lived make such a task difficult, the hostile local aborigines, occurred during shore if not impossible. Even if exhaustive and abso- excursions: Others were the direct result of in- lutely accurate in detail, such lists can still pose competence or fraud by workers in the dockyard problems for potential users unfamiliar with the at Sydney who, among other misdemeanours, had nature, limitations and reliability of the primary made the water casks out of staves originally used sources used, the objectives and operational para- in barrels that had contained salt: Worst of all was meters of the original rese arch task and the partic- the nearly fatal leak caused by the iron underwa- ular goals and investigative skills of the compiler. ter fastenings, fraudulently substituted for the The fact that fewer "lists" are now being pub- more expensive copper variety by the Calcu tta lished appears to be a recognition of the problem- builders of the Mermaid, being eaten away by atic nature of statistical profiles and may explain electrolytic action with the copper sheathing. why it was necessary for the author to have a Strained personal relations, caused partly by hundred copies of this book printed privately: tropical heat, cramped space and extreme isola- Obviously there are many factors which tion, also had to be managed. affect the overall reliability and usefulness of Kings surveys were of a very high order and summary compilations, but to all is an exponen- provided a firm base for later hydrographic work tial relationship between quality and the magni- in the area. Of the thirty-two charts and plans he tude of the rese arch effort. It would be easier, for presented to the Admiralty in 1825, two were still example, to measure Dundees pa rticipation in in use during World War II, while the last plate Northern whaling than to identify the whole was not withdrawn until 1955: extent of Scottish involvement in the trade. In The This is a handsomely produced book, lav- Greenland and Davis Strait Trade: 1740-1880, ishly furnished with splendid illustrations and A.G.E. Jones attempts no less a task than the maps. In a sleeve at the end there are facsimiles, compilation of an inventory that "will provide the reduced in size, of a number of Kings original basis for a detailed history of the Northern Fisher- charts. The three appendices contain the official ies [whaling/sealing] from British po rts, with orders to King, a full list of stores and equipment histories of ships, masters and owners:" carried by the Mermaid and a brief summary of Clearly, publications intended primarily to Kings charts. This book is highly recommended facilitate research by others should at least be but readers are advised to have a good atlas at comprehensive and meet minimum standards of hand as they sail with King along the Australian accuracy: This book, unfortunately, fails on both coast. counts: Accuracy appears not to be the main problem, however, though information was not John Bach checked because "after five or six years of search- Coal Point, New South Wales ing ... [the author did] ... not feel inclined to repeat it for the sake of complete accuracy." This Book Reviews 115 is all right in Jones view because the work tries, transcribed from approximately 15 million "should have been done by those who have access items. It is 147 pages long and is now published! to free or cheap labour and Public funds, but they It is thus easy to understand why those not famil- have shirked the work." Unfortunately, there may iar with the Registers, or with the true magnitude be very good reasons why "others" did not take of the British Northern whale fishery, might view up the challenge — reasons he perhaps should this list as both accurate and comprehensive. have recognized: In any event, it is hard to justify My own investigation of the Scottish end of offering a flawed document, no matter how heroic the trade (a minor component of the total British the research effort, with a flippant "so here is the effort for most of its existence) indicates that list, with its faults." Jones does not come close to identifying even The books major fault lies in the fact that it fifty percent of Britains involvement in Northern is grossly incomplete. Jones appears to have only whaling and sealing during the eighteenth and a rudimentary understanding of the strengths and nineteenth centuries. Thus, only one vessel is weaknesses, the limitations in other words, of listed as having cleared for the whaling grounds Lloyd's Register of Shipping (1764-1865) and from a Scottish po rt in 1764, when in fact there The Register of the Socie ty of Merchants, Ship- were nine. Similarly, Jones claims that there were Owners and Underwriters (1800-1833). Simply no Scottish whalers in 1783, yet four sailed from put, these insurance records can not, in and of Dunbar alone. Only sixteen vessels are included themselves, be used to provide a reliable measure for 1816 when at least forty-nine cleared from of British involvement in Arctic whaling and nine different Scottish ports. Equally serious, sealing. Strangely, Jones acknowledges this from a Scottish perspective, is Jones decision to problem: "The present volume ..: provides an stop collecting beyond 1880 (actually 1865) incomplete record, for which there is no alterna- "because of the size of the effo rt in extracting a tive." In fact, there are an increasing number of few dozen entries from the many thousand in alternatives. The Scottish trade, for example, has each year, and the physical size of the volumes." been well studied and was the focus of a Ph.D (C. This pretty well sums up the main problem with Sanger, Geography, Dundee 1985) which has this book. It is not so much that Jones is not up to generated numerous articles. There are even more the task, but rather that the task is simply too quality publications on British Northern whaling, ambitious, even for a dedicated researcher with an most notably by Prof. Gordon Jackson of the impressive work ethic and proven investigative University of Strathclyde. Whether Jones is skills. Between 1865 and 1900, for example, unaware of this growing body of literature, or there were more than 640 individual Scottish simply chooses to ignore it, is moot, in that their whaling/sealing voyages! Additionally, the exclusion contributes significantly to the overall exclusion of these four decades prevents prospec- poor quality of this book. A twen ty-two-page tive scholars from examining such impo rtant "Introduction," for example, which is intended to events as Scotlands rise as an important whaling provide an overview of the trade, makes no nation, the construction and use of steamers reference whatsoever to "academic" sources: The designed specifically for ice navigation, expan- "Introduction" is, therefore, as the author points sion into sealing at Newfoundland and off Jan out, "incomplete and confused," but not, unfortu- Mayen (thus subsidizing the whaling effo rt and nately, because "the extant material is in tiny helping to reduce Greenland Right whale [bow- fragments in the newspapers of the day." head] stocks very nearly to the point of extinc- While Jones identifies some of the problems tion), an attempt to open up Antarctic whaling in associated with the Registers, and thus his own 1893-94, and the development of winter stations list, this does not mitigate the inherent danger of in the Eastern Canadian Arctic, with their subse- using this publication in isolation, especially for quent impact on indigenous populations. those not familiar with the sources and/or young In short, this publication may well do more scholars. Perhaps paradoxically, the main diffi- harm than good if its serious limitations are not culty is that this list is the result of an impressive properly understood by those interested in the research effort by a credible and well published British Northern whale fishery as a whole, or investigator. The list contains some 15,000 en- individual regions, ports, vessels, masters or 1 1 The Northern Mariner owners. Sadly, this is undoubtedly the last thing East and West Greenlanders and Denmark, of the author would want. Fortunately the book, in local political and economic processes, and of the its own small way, may do some good. While the international political and economic processes to author is to be admired for his industry and which local actions are inextricably tied. Green- perseverance, the single most impo rtant message landers marginalization in a number of these conveyed by his enormous and costly effort is processes as well as their active strategies not to that to be published, research projects should be be lost therein are drawn out in detail: Caulfield planned carefully, justified fully and subjected to also uses a more ethnographic approach to chal- peer review: lenge the moral/cultural grounds on which Green- landic whaling has been questioned. He examines Chesley W: Sanger the multiple ways in which Greenlandic social St. Johns, Newfoundland relations are mediated through whale exchange, arguing that the presence or absence of money in Richard A. Caulfield. Greenlanders, Whales, and such exchanges does not necessarily mean they Whaling: Sustainability and Self-Determination are "commercial" although the assumption that it in the Arctic. Hanover, NH: Universi ty Press of does so lies behind many challenges to the New England, 1997: xiv + 203 pp., maps, tables, "authenticity" of "subsistence whaling." And he figures, photographs, notes, appendix, index. US explores the implications of a rhetorical shi ft in $35, cloth; ISBN 0-87451-810-5. some IWC discussions from a conservationist stance (whaling is permissible if sustainable) to a Greenlanders (Kallaalit) have a complex history moral one ("we" should not hunt "them"), which of relations with Europeans, first with whalers, clearly privileges some cultural constructions of missionaries and traders and more recently with what whaling is "about" over others: If we are to the Danish nation-state: Perhaps uniquely among take sustainable development seriously, Caulfield Inuit, they have been able to exercise a relatively argues, we must be prepared to recognize its high degree of political autonomy since the trajectory will not always go in the same direc- inception of Home Rule in 1972. Nevertheless, tion, nor be conducted on the same terms. the decisions Greenlanders can make about the Caulfields project is ambitious and, for the way they live today are affected not only by the most part, successful: The book should appeal to political systems — local, regional and national — a varied audience, from historians of the Arctic of which they are a part, but also by global sys- and anthropologists interested in the complex tems in which the policies of, for example, the hunter/gatherer relations to those who are con- International Whaling Commission (IWC), the cerned with issues of global marine resource European Union (EU), and/or the No rth Atlantic management. The historical threads are crucial to Treaty Organisation (NATO) are influential: a clear understanding of the complexity of the Caulfield sets out this very complex state of current situation and this is one of the few ac- affairs in order to contextualise contemporary counts bringing so many of them together in the Greenlandic whaling. It is most emphatically — Greenlandic context. It is, however, somewhat and importantly — neither a story of "authentic compressed and, I suspect, Caulfields arguments tradition," romantically embedded in twentieth- lose some of their force thereby: As an anthropol- century existence, nor one of "modernisation:" ogist, I would have appreciated learning how he Instead, Caulfield explicitly describes a context in gathered his data, how people reacted to him, which cellular telephones as well as seal hunting what he found easy, difficult, surprising, and the are impo rtant. His central question is whether co- like. At an analytical level, Caulfields strongest management regimes as they pertain to Kallaalit argument holds that money as a medium of whaling, given their social costs and political exchange must be understood in its cultural complexities, can feasibly underpin a strategy of context. I agree entirely and think that this is one sustainable development: To address this, he of the most important points of the book. But moves back and forth between multiple story because it is a strong argument, it would car ry lines of historical reconstruction: of Greenlandic more weight for those not already convinced if whaling, of the colonial relationships between there were a deeper discussion of how Caulfield Book Reviews 117 came to this understanding, contextualised per- in increased media coverage of the whaling issue haps in comparative northern material as well as and shaped public awareness. Today, a consensus by other theoretical treatments of similar argu- has formed in the Western industrialized nations ments (e.g., Parry and Bloch, Money and the that whales are taboo for commercial exploitation: Morality of Exchange [1989]). Indeed, I would On the political and international level, this have welcomed more comparative discussion of consensus is expressed in the IWC, where anti- northern material in general — of whaling prac- whaling nations are having the decisive majority. tices, of Home Rule government, of gendered In this book Peter Stoett, who teaches politi- relations and of political strategizing — in order to cal science, analyzes the international politics draw out those processes which seem to be pan- around the whaling issue. Whales are a common Arctic and those which are uniquely Greenlandic. property but they are also the property of the Given Caulfields familiarity with No rth Ameri- person who takes them: Thus, they illustrate the can material, perhaps this is his next project: If so, notion of the commons, characterized by both a I look forward to it! common incentive to conserve a resource and an individual incentive to exploit it. This principle Barbara Bodenhorn sets the agenda, within which the actors — sover- Cambridge, England eign states, intergovernmental org anisations, non- governmental organisations (NGOs) and business Peter J. Stoett. The International Politics of interests — exert their relative powers. There is Whaling: Vancouver: UBC Press, 1997. xii + 228 also a normative dimension to this interaction pp., tables, appendices, notes, bibliography, defining rights and obligations of the actors, as index. $65, cloth; ISBN 0-7748-0605-2; $24.95, well as the question of cost allocation within an paper; ISBN 0-7748-0604-4. international resource management regime. Stoett outlines his methodology in an intro- With no other form of marine living resource has ductory chapter, then describes the history of the pattern of overexploitation become more evi- whaling and whaling regulation before moving on dent than with whales. Peak whaling seasons in to the political setting. There he discusses the the 1960s resulted in record catches of almost policies of several nation states within the IWC 70,000 whales: With the threat of extinction and of major NGOs around it. He elaborates on pending for several stocks, research on whales the current normative discussion concerning the was boosted, yielding spectacular insights into ethics of killing whales and devotes a final chap- their biology and behaviour. Fascination and ter to the future of international whaling politics. extinction, these notions combined have had the Stoett is correct in ascribing a future to effect of making whales a powerful symbol for whaling. At present — the book is up-to-date until the environmental movement since the early 1996, but the IWC meetings in 1997 and 1998 1970s. No other form of sea tenure has undergone have not come up with significant changes — so radical a change in public opinion, concomi- there is a stalemate between anti- and pro-whalers tant moral values and ensuing politics as whaling. within the IWC. From the ecological point of In 1946, an international convention found- view, even ardent anti-whalers admit that regu- ing the International Whaling Commission (IWC) lated catches could be safely made from selected was set up by fourteen whaling nations. For many and closely monitored whale stocks. But the years it was a pure whalers club serving the revised management procedure which would interests of the industry. Then, during the 1960s, allow for some whaling is to be embedded in a scientific advice gained a little ground in the management scheme with additional qualifica- IWC, and from the 1970s on, more and more non- tions that "would not be met by whalers in fifty whaling signatories joined the IWC in order to years, and probably never:" (BBC Wildlife, June bring about an ecological change in whaling 1994) If this attitude is not overcome, the IWC regulation: Mediagenic action by Greenpeace and will break up. Stoett fails to mention that several the public relations of a host of other environmen- anti-whaling nations have recently resorted to a tal and animal welfare organizations, all capitaliz- new tactic which is likely to speed up this pro- ing on a billion-dollar donations-market, resulted cess: their IWC delegates admit that the whaling 118 The Northern Mariner moratorium could safely be lifted, but they claim extant a very considerable literature on these to lack the democratic legitimation of their gov- fisheries and of the people and communities ernments constituency to consent to resumed involved in them. Such, however, is the scale and whaling. This is the first instance where, with variety of the topic that it has been possible in reference to domestic policy, the principles of this volume to add to it and update it with a pot- science and rational discourse in international pourri of topics and themes. The studies deal with resource management have been given up: episodes which vary on a time scale from half a In his discussion of the ethical dimension dozen years to a century or more, and on a spatial Stoett relies mainly on Anglo-American literature, scale from the local through the provincial to the the extensive Scandinavian literature — much of national and international. Yet appropriately it is which is in English — is largely neglected: He Newfoundland that occupies centre-stage in the therefore does not recognize the two main reasons light of its long involvement in — and degree of of Japan and Norway to continue whaling in spite dependence on — the fisheries. There are a total of the immense costs of whaling — because of of eighteen papers, in which the work of histori- government subsidies and boycotts — and the loss ans is supplemented by that of anthropologists of political prestige. If they succumb to the politi- and others, and the extensive documentation is a cal pressure exerted by anti-whaling nations on de facto recognition of the extent of previous account of an irrational perception of whales, they related work. While in time everything from the would allow for a legal precedent to be set: A prehistoric to the mode rn is dealt with, under- later resumption of whaling would then be almost standably the detail and variety of treatment impossible, and there would be the danger of increases through time in harmony with the similarly irrational arguments being applied to increase of available records: The work is in four other living resources. The second reason is parts, dealing respectively with the early fishery rooted in traditional strategic thinking: Present- (three chapters), the eighteenth century (two day whaling is community-based whaling (as chapters), the nineteenth century (four chapters) opposed to capitalist whaling supplying a world and the twentieth century (nine chapters). market with raw material). Taking the economic In the first part an initial chapter gives an mainstay from these communities, the danger overview of archaeological material. Although arises that these coastal settlements might be there was human occupation from c. 11,000 BP, deserted, an idea which in spite of all military the earliest phases are very sparsely known. A changes still vexes our nation states strategists. contribution on the sixteenth-century fishing Despite these shortcomings and an inade- voyage shows how medieval technology and quate index this is a useful book which should be organisation were adapted to new demands in the consulted by all scholars interested in the history exploitation of the northwest Atlantic from Euro- of whaling: pean bases, while a study of the sixteenth-century fishery of Portugal shows the "enormous voids" in Klaus Barthelmess the evidence for the widely accepted view of a Cologne, Germany big-scale fishery of that count ry at that time. In the second part, a chapter on the eight- James E. Candow and Carol Corbin (eds.). How eenth-century French fishery shows how the well- Deep Is The Ocean? Historical Essays on Can- recorded conflict between the French and British ada's Atlantic Fishery. Sydney, NS: Universi ty has overshadowed the more basic conflict be- College of Cape Breton Press, 1997: xvii + 288 tween resident and migratory fishing interests. A pp., illustrations, maps, figures, tables, photo- chapter on the New England fishery at Canso graphs, glossary, index. $29.95, paper; ISBN 0- 1720-1744 shows an instance of European inter- 920336-86-8. ests being displaced at a relatively early date. The section on the nineteenth century strikes The main title of this book is less enigmatic than a more domestic note. Two chapters add further at first appears, such is the range and profundity instances (at Miscou, New Brunswick and the of experience in the history of the fisheries of Gaspé) to the well-studied theme of truck rela- Canadas eastern seaboard. There is already tionships and to the "deep and lasting scars" in Book Reviews 119

their legacy. At Harbour Breton, Anglic an church Alicja Muszynski. Cheap Wage Labour: Race records are used to investigate the theme of and Gender in the Fisheries of British Columbia. transition from frontier work-camp to settled Montréal Kingston: McGill-Queens Universi ty outport. Probably most telling in this section is a Press, 1996. xiv + 314 pp., maps, tables, bibliog- study of late nineteenth-century Bonavista which raphy, index. $44.95, cloth; ISBN 0-7735-1376-0. shows the impo rtance of the informal sector of the economy (as a complement to the fishery) in Cheap Wage Labour is an analysis of shore work allowing the community to su rvive and continue. and shore workers in British Columbias fish The first chapter in the last section is effec- processing industry from the mid-1860s to the tively a fitting focus for the whole work: in mid-1980s. At the outset the book identifies the "Recurrent Visitations of Pauperism: Change and unconscious connection made between fishing Continuity in the Newfoundland Fishery," James and masculine pursuits and the ideal of adventure. Candow presents a masterly summary of New- However, once the fish is brought to shore, clean- foundland experience, and brings it up to date in ing and preparing it for consumption was often the way that "technology and greed, along with accepted as womens work. Muszynski says that the failure of science, economics, politics and "the various activities connected to fishing also regulation, have brought us to the brink of the reflect the gender dichotomization of various ecological abyss:" A chapter on beach women at sorts of labour." [4] Grand Bank makes good a defect in much histori- This book uses the discipline of sociology cal work in fisheries in recognising the impor- and political economy with an expansion of tance of the female contribution. Modernisation Marxs labour theory of value to incorporate race efforts are covered in a chapter on steam trawling and gender as principles that legitimized the in Nova Scotia earlier this century, and in that on payment of cheap wages to aboriginal women, Stewart Bates, the Canadian fisheries minister in immigrant women and men including those from the period immediately after World War II. Two China and Japan and who worked in the salmon papers deal with the mounting inte rnational fish- canning industry. The author says that salmon ing effort in the northwest Atlantic in the twenti- canning was carried out in a factory setting right eth century, and which accelerated so much in the from the beginning. "The assembly line was 1960s; significantly and expressively, the second adopted ... workers focused on one set of tasks: of these is entitled "The Fish Killers." Three cleansing the fish, butchering it, making the cans, papers deal specifically with marine biological placing the fish in them, cooking the contents, research and conse rvation: the first summarises soldering the cans to seal them, testing for leaks earlier work in Newfoundland; the second shows and lacquering cans:" [5] In addition different how the practical accumulated experience of groups were assigned particular jobs and were fishermen is a necessary complement to the work segregated from one another. For example, "all of fisheries scientists; and a somewhat melan- male `china gangs were hired and paid by Chi- choly final chapter details the commercial annihi- nese contractors to make the cans, to butcher the lation of the northern cod stock, the cause of fish ... aboriginal women were hired most often to which is still a matter of dispute among fisheries clean the fish and fill the cans." [6] Even when scientists, and the management of which has been these two groups did the same type of work — fill seriously complicated by inadequate communica- the cans — they were separated from each other tion between different interest groups. and paid according to different systems, specified In all the components of this work add up to by gender. The task of this book, then, is to a coherent whole. The fisheries of this region "develop a general theoretical framework that can have already exercised commentators and ana- help us understand how salmon canners engaged lysts for many generations. There is every indica- their shore plant labour forces according to cri- tion that more books like this will be needed well teria of race and gender." [9] In an attempt to into the new millennium: develop this general theory, the author was re- quired to incorporate a far-reaching literature that James R. Coull examines broad but complementary issues: writ- Aberdeen, Scotland ings in the area of race and gender, feminist 120 The Northern Mariner writings on patriarchy and Marxian analyses of Matthew Stephens. Hannah Snell: The Secret Life imperialism and colonialism and immigration of a Female Marine, 1723-1792. Sutton, Surrey: law. Ship Street Press, 1997. 63 pp:, illustrations, Cheap Wage Labour is a complex book for maps, notes: £4:95, paper; ISBN 0-9530565-0-3: several reasons: the material appears to be Muszynskis doctoral dissertation, although in the Sensing a good story in the run up to the Gulf acknowledgments she says that the "dissertation War, the popular press made much of the fact that served as a starting point to the present study:" It women, as they understood it, were for the first contains an assortment of side debates with time going to be present in ships of the Royal various theorists that one engages in when writing Navy as they went into action. Yet the marriages a thesis. The scope of the work is complicated and deaths section of The Naval Chronicle pub- because the author weaves a variety of impo rtant lished between 1799 and 1818 contained several interlocking strands of relationships that are references to women who served in the navy labyrinthine, multilayered and ever changing during the Napoleonic Wars and more recently in during a period of 120 years. Not only does the Female Tars (reviewed in TNM/LMN April 1997) book address the social construction of race and Suzanne Stark dealt with the whole question of gender in the fisheries of British Columbia but women aboard ships in the age of sail: Probably also the social construction of the "Chinaman" the best remembered life of a woman in the ser- and the "Jap." The discussion includes the in- vices all those years ago is that of Hannah Snell: volvement of patriarchy, capitalism, exploitation, A resume of her life reads like a synopsis of ideology, and the role of the United Fishermen a Henry Fielding novel. Abandoned as a young and Allied Workers Union in the fate of the cheap wife, she adopted the name of her brother-in-law labourers. and dressed in mens clothing, set off to track Whether or not the author successfully down her husband, was pressed to the army, developed a general theoretical framework to deserted, joined the Royal Marines, was wounded debate the issue is somewhat questionable for the in action, returned home and revealed her true concluding comments contradict what was said identity. Celebrity followed as she appeared in on page nine, noted above. Muszynski says "what music halls around the count ry. In 1750 Snell we need is not more grand theory but analysis collaborated with printer and publisher Robert that takes into account the diversity and complex- Walker who produced a best seller, followed ity of lives as people live them from day to day. shortly afterwards by a more detailed serialisation This is the feminist project — not to discover the of the story. Anyone with personal experience of one theory that will explain everything, but to barrack room life will question immediately bring forward diversity at all levels of analysis, whether or not it would be possible for a woman using theoretical understanding as a way into the in her twenties to be able to conceal her gender complexity of the social world in which we live." from shipmates for four and a half years. This she has done. In this well-produced and readable booklet Although the book addresses the issue of genealogist Matthew Stephens uses Walkers text cheap labour in the canning industry of British as the basis of a fresh study of Snells life. He Columbia it should attract a wider maritime tries wherever possible to verify statements with academic readership. As the book is laden with facts from public records and contemporary third the jargon of political economy it will not likely party reports. While it is a fascinating literary be accessible to a general readership. It will, investigation, it also stimulates some interesting however, make a contribution to the existing side issues. For instance, how could a semi- literature on work, race and gender in the aca- literate sailor of the mid-eighteenth century recall demic community and it most certainly will with any degree of accuracy the timing of events increase awareness and interest in this most over the previous five years or so? engrossing and worthwhile topic. On account of the wounds she received Snell was granted a pension of five pence a day which Anna Leslie indicates that the authorities were satisfied that Corner Brook, Newfoundland she did in fact se rve in the Marines: In Britain's Book Reviews 121

Sea Soldiers, his history of the Corps, Field enamoured of the effect on fighting of technologi- devoted a whole chapter to her experiences. By cal development, and the treatment of signals and going back to Walkers account and ignoring the fleet manoeuvring between Tromp and Nelson is embellished secondary versions that have ap- strongly drawn. This is a difficult subject and peared over the years the author has given fresh Sweetman would not expect to be complimented impetus to the story and will certainly stimulate on writing the "definitive" exposition on the local historians to see if they too can find traces subject, but the treatment does clarify the subject of Snells progress as she toured the provincial for debate and does not muddy the water as so music halls and, in so doing, fill some of the gaps many of such accounts have done. in this remarkable life. There is no doubt it is a Yet technological concentration has its dan- good tale that has lost nothing in the telling. gers: It is possible that the edge of judgment when applied to certain characters by their expos- Norman Hurst itors sometimes needs a wider anchorage. This is Coulsdon, Surrey true of Ruyter who comes across as a skilful Admiral more than as the saviour of his count ry Jack Sweetman (ed.). The Great Admirals: Com- in days when both the French and the English mand At Sea, 1587-1945. Annapolis: Naval threatened to choke off the United Provinces. Institute Press, 1997. xxvi + 534 pp., maps, Ruyter, man of genius, almost single-handedly illustrations, photographs, select bibliography, prevented this. It is in the folk lore that the Eng- index. US $49.95, Cdn $69.95, cloth; ISBN 0- lish wrestled the trident from Dutch hands by 87021-229-X. Canadian distributor, Vanwell 1675: Yet Sir Charles Wilson has shown that the Publishing, St. Cath arines, ON. city of London only surpassed Amsterdam as European money-mart capital by 1780. In other Nineteen articles assessing the capacities and ex- words Ruyter provided long term solutions to ploits of selected Admirals cannot be reviewed in Dutch problems. In the same way, in the Great detail in only a few hundred words. But Jack War, Admiral Jellicoe held the naval weapon of Sweetmans book is worth buying, even at to- survival in his hand. While he was in Iron Duke days ruinous prices, because the selection of he kept the Eastern approaches, and at the Admi- both writers and Admirals has been carried out ralty, he kept the western approaches from the with skill and discrimination. The editor wastes submarine. In both capacities he was triumphant. some time in his introduction justifying his We need to lift our eyes from the scene of action choices, most of whom are self evident. There are from time to time. Old fashioned nationalistic some surprises, and perhaps the most notable is purposes have a bearing on naval affairs. Still, the article on Admiral Suffren, whose claims to this book illumines events in a refreshing way. greatness are both explained and questioned all in the same exceedingly effective treatment. The Donald M. Schurman strength of the contributions concerning Tromp, Victoria, British Columbia Blake and Michel de Ruyter are salutary reflec- tions on the seventeenth century, that era of Nicholas Harris Nicolas (ed.); foreword to this sanguinary contests and high mortality: it is right, edition, Michael Nash. The Dispatches and in my opinion, that the Dutch should figure so Letters of Lord Nelson, Volume I: 1777-1794. strongly. The series is certainly not overburdened London: Chatham Publishing, 1997. [viii +1 xlviii by contributions concerning American admirals. + 504 pp., frontispiece. £18, paper; ISBN 1- Clark Reynolds chapter on Halsey is especially 86176-048-5. well done, and it is worthy to stand beside Philippe Massons, since it gives Halsey a much The Nelson industry continues to generate books needed shove towards ordinary mortality: alto- and articles on Britains most famous fighting gether a delightful piece. seaman. This, the first of a seven-volume collec- The editor draws his contributors together tion of Nelsons dispatches and letters, will make with a very useful narrative that constitutes a the task of research a lot easier by making readily naval history piece on its own: He is highly accessible in affordable paperback form a vital 122 The Northern Mariner

part of the source material which must be used by patches to the Admiralty and Secretaries of State, anyone writing anything about Nelson. provide the basic evidence for any examination of Apart from a brief foreword by Michael the development of his character. Detractors have Nash, the book is a straightforward unedited often accused Nelson of excessive vanity but reprint of the o riginal 1844 edition: The foreword there is no indication of this trait in the early is a succinct account of the life of the compiler, letters. They contain little self-praise and do not Sir Nicholas Harris Nicolas: From a naval family draw attention to his own bravery and daring. The himself, Nicolas entered the Royal Navy at the letters do, however, contain hints of other charac- tender age of nine in 1808, three years after ter traits for which he later became well known: Nelsons victory and death at Trafalgar. Put on his devotion to duty, his concern for the well- half-pay as a lieutenant in 1816, Nicolas took up being of the sailors under his command, and his a literary career which peaked with the publica- generous nature. In September 1793, after a long tion of the work now being reprinted: The careful period off Toulon, he wrote of his sailors: "here scholarship and his knowledge of the sea in there is no prize money to soften their hardships: Nicolas notes help the reader identify people and all we get is honour and salt-beef. My poor events which might otherwise be obscure. fellows have not had a morsel of fresh meat or Although Nelson went to sea in 1770, as a vegetables for near nineteen weeks." [325] midshipman on HMS Raisonable, the letters do Although this is the first volume of what will not start until April 1777, when the eighteen year be the most accessible and complete set of Nel- old passed the examination for lieutenant. They sons own writings, for research purposes it must are prefaced, however, by a valuable autobio- be used, of course, in conce rt with other Nelson graphical note in which Nelson sketched the main documents, most notably the large collection in events of his life from his birth in the Norfolk the National Maritime Museum in Greenwich and parsonage of Burnham Thorpe in 1758 until in various papers held in the Public Record Office October 1799, a year after his annihilation of at Kew. Chatham Publishing is to be congratu- French admiral Brueys fleet at the battle of the lated for embarking on this long-overdue venture, Nile. The 430 letters and dispatches in volume I the completion of which we look forward to with cover the years between 1777 and 1794: During pleasurable anticipation. that time, Nelson was promoted captain and sent to the West Indies where he displayed great Gerald Jordan ingenuity and imaginative leadership in the ill- Toronto, Ontario fated 1780 amphibious operation against St. Juan, Nicaragua. After a sho rt period on half-pay in Robert Gardiner (ed.). Nelson Against Napoleon: 1781, followed by a year on the No rth American From the Nile to Copenhagen, 1798-1801. "Chat- coast, he returned to the West Indies where, in ham Pictorial History" series; Annapolis: Naval 1787, he married Frances (Fanny) Nisbet on the Institute Press, 1997. 192 pp., illustrations, maps, island of Nevis. From 1793 he served in the sources, appendix, index: US $49.95, Cdn Mediterranean under Lord Hood and Vice-Admi- $69.95, cloth; ISBN 1-55750-642-6. Canadian ral Hotham where he lost the sight of his right eye distributor, Vanwell Publishing, St. Catharines, and achieved fame at the siege of Calvi in ON: Corsica. It was in 1793 that he first met his future lover Emma, the wife of Sir William Hamilton, The "Chatham Pictorial Series," co-published in the British ambassador in Naples: Emma is de- England by Chatham Publishing, was created to scribed in a letter to Fanny as "a young woman of provide an illustrated view of major events, ships, amiable manners, and who does honour to the and periods of British naval history. The many station to which she is raised." [326] paintings and prints created by artists and engrav- The often long and frank personal letters ers during the seventeenth through nineteenth from Nelson to his wife, relatives and friends, centuries provide a superb means of achieving the especially HRH William, Duke of Clarence, goal of the publishers: In the case of Nelson Captain Cuthbert Collingwood and Captain Against Napoleon, the wealth of contemporary William Locker, together with the official dis- material contributes to an excellent visual survey Book Reviews 123 of the period. This is the second of five volumes techniques or computer scanning there is no intended to cover the wars with Republican and legitimate reason for illustrations to be so dark as Napoleonic France between 1793-1815. to obscure details, or for maps and charts to be The "Chatham Pictorial Series" was inspired illegible. Regrettably some of the illustrations by the 66,000-piece collection of the National suffer in this manner as in "A View of the City of Maritime Museum in Greenwich, England: Addi- Malta" [21] which is quite dark, and the "Plans of tional sources of illustrative materials are the the Battle of the Nile" [31] whose details are Admiralty Collection of ship drawings supple- blurred. Clear battle plans are critical to following mented by charts from the Navigation Depart- the basic narrative. One sometimes has to hunt for ment and personal journals kept by the Manu- the descriptions of the illustrations when they do script Department, Greenwich: The illustrations not appear on the same page. and complimenting materials were then brought The section on Egypt admirably illustrates together and grouped to provide a contemporary the naval and military challenges of that cam- view of specific dramatic events and historical paign from both the French and the British per- actions. The coverage is extraordinary in its detail spective. The unfortunate Anglo-Russian inv asion given the fact that each volume has been dedi- of the Netherlands in 1799 has many interesting cated to a relatively brief period of history. The and valuable maps and illustrations but the princi- volume should have value to generations of future pal map [121] certainly could be printed in a historians seeking illustrations for their own clearer manner. With the sophisticated reproduc- works since it represents an excellent guide to the tion and computer enhancing techniques available extent and nature of materials available at the today there is no excuse for this shortcoming in National Maritime Museum. so expensive a work: Gardiners narrative sets the scene, describes The volume concludes with a highly interest- the players, and places historical events into ing and worthwhile "Notes on Artists, Printmak- perspective. The narrative is well presented. ers, and Their Techniques" which complements Unfortunately no effo rt is made to support the the text and should be a helpful guide to collec- text with any form of documentation: While the tors of these materials from the period. work is not intended to be a historical monograph Nelson Against Napoleon is a very good for research purposes, minimal citations should work, one that is well worth considering for be mandatory: The "List of Sources" at the end of addition to libraries both public and private. the work certainly suggests that with a little more effort this could have been done. The result might William Henry Flayhart III very well have been a volume worthy of substan- Dover, Delaware tial professional respect since the work is so much better than the run-of-the-mill coffee table selec- George Paloczi-Horvath. From Monitor to Mis- tions: Let us hope that this serious short-coming sile Boat: Coast Defence Ships and Coastal can be modified in future volumes which would Defence Since 1860. London: Conway Maritime enormously increase their worth to scholarship. Press and Annapolis: Naval Institute Press, 1996. With regard to the profusion of illustrations 160 pp:, illustrations, photographs, figures, the selection of materials in charts, paintings and appendices, index. US $54.95, Cdn $76.95, cloth; prints is excellent. One reservation is that quite a ISBN 1-55750-270-6. Canadian distributor, few of the illustrations are split between two Vanwell Publishing, St. Catharines, ON. facing pages in a clumsy layout that serves no publishing purpose. An example is a print of a This book is a study of the origins and evolution 74-gun ship-of-the-line [14-15] which leaves the of a highly-specialized naval vessel — the coast reverse image of the ship almost totally destroyed defence ship — from 1860 to date. The authors in the fold. This is frustrating and accomplishes starting point is the famous engagement between nothing with regard to the fundamental layout of the iron clads, USS Monitor and CSS Virginia in the book while damaging the overall product. Hampton Roads and it is his thesis that this battle, Furthermore, with the modem capacity for repro- and the subsequent action at Lissa four years duction enhancement through either printing later, led to the creation of the coast defence ship, 124 The Northern Mariner

a small heavily-armed and protected warship with centrates on gun-armed vessels, yet makes almost a limited range and mission: no mention of the concomitant evolution of the George Paloczi-Horvath is undaunted in his motor torpedo boat (now commonly termed the efforts to trace the evolution of this oft-neglected fast attack craft) whose origins can be traced back class of fighting vessel: With a text accompanied to within a decade of the ironclad action at by plentiful illustrations he takes us through the Hampton Roads and which played a major role in historical permutations as various world navies naval warfare in shallow waters in both world experiment with the coast defence ship. As he wars. The marriage of the Whitehead torpedo points out, it is often the m aritime forces of lesser with the small, fast attack craft powered by the powers, who do not foresee offensive action in combustion engine resulted in a deadly little wartime, who were particularly attracted to this warship that, ton for ton, was far more effective type of vessel, for it packed a maximum of punch than the shallow-draft miniature battleships that for a minimum of cost: Thus Holland, Denmark, fascinate the author: This is a curious omission in Norway, Sweden, Finland and Russia were the a book devoted to a century of the history of leading players in developing the classic coast naval coast defence. defence ship. There was also the Royal Thai Navy, whose Japanese-built coast defence ves- Michael Whitby sels, armed with 8-inch guns, were decisively Almonte, Ontario beaten by the Vichy navy at the battle of Koh- Chang in February 1941, "the only French naval Milan N. Vego. Austro-Hungarian Naval Policy victory of either World War conceived and exe- 1904-14. London: Frank Cass Co., 1996. xviii cuted by French forces entirely alone and without + 213 pp., maps, tables, photographs, appendices, even the implied support of an ally:" selected bibliography, index. £35, US $47.50, An interesting aside in this book is the cloth; ISBN 0-7146-4678-6. £18, US $22.50, authors discussion of the origins of the so-called paper; ISBN 0-7146-4209-6. Distributed in No rth German "pocket battleships" of World War II. America by International Specialized Book Their design originated in a perceived need on the Services, Portland, OR. part of the Kriegsmarine in the immediate after- math of the Versailles treaty to construct a coast One is tempted to welcome the appearance since defence ship that would counter similar vessels in 1994 of two successive major studies on the the Polish and French navies but evolved beyond Austro-Hungarian Navy where none of their that to become a high seas warship of great scope had been published previously in English offensive power. on this major naval power of World War 1. Both It is quite clear, however, that one of the books, the one by Milan Vego reviewed here and problems inherent in designing a warship with a the earlier but much larger and more extensive limited function is that, if that ships eventual The Naval Policy of Austria-Hungary 1867-1918 opponent does not play by the rules, the special- by Lawrence Sondhaus, do overlap each other in ized vessel is in trouble. By the time of World content and purpose. Unlike the Vego study, the War II, the coast defence ship was obsolete and Sondhaus book has much more detail throughout the fates of those manned by the Norwegian, on naval budgets, the powerful internal politics Finnish, Danish, Dutch and Thai navies make for surrounding warship construction and especially rather depressing reading. Most of the European his analyses in depth of the successful multi- vessels that survived the initial German attack racial structure of the fleets personnel, all since were converted by their captors into anti-aircraft 1867. In addition, it is a continuum of Sondhauss ships, which is a fitting comment on the changing earlier The Habsburg Empire and the Sea: Aus- nature of naval warfare in the 1940s: trian Naval Policy 1797-1866 published in 1989: The author is clearly entranced by this minor To be fair, Vego clearly is not attempting to warship type and his work will appeal to readers duplicate Sondhaus. Rather, his book is a com- with a similar fascination. The problem is that plete diplomatic history of the place and role of Paloczi-Horvath ignores a major pa rt of the story Austria-Hungary as a sea-power with the worlds of coast defence warship development. He con- six largest navy in the persistent and ever-danger- Book Reviews 125 ous maneuvers of the European great powers ing Serbia (which denied its Adriatic seaport during the uncertain decade that finally led to the before 1914) close to the other. start of World War I in the summer of 1914. Between 1904 and the wars outbreak, the John D. Harbron European powers sustained competing alliances Toronto, Ontario and built large armies and fleets to confront each other rather than finding genuine ways to main- Paolo Coletta and Bernarr B. Coletta. Admiral tain the peace: For the Habsburg empire, success William A: Moffett and US: Naval Aviation. with the latter would have meant continuity for Lewiston, NY and Queenston, ON: Edwin Mellen the very long peace of the reign of octogenarian Press, 1997. xv + 255 pp., photographs, list of Emperor Franz Josef I: Austria had fought its last Moffetts published works, bibliography, index: European war before World War I in 1866, less US $99.95, cloth; ISBN 0-7734-8595-3. than a decade after Franz Josef had mounted the imperial throne and half a century before he died This is a detailed biography of Admiral William in his bed at age 84. Vegos main theme, there- A. Moffett, who was responsible for taking fore, is how Austria-Hungary between 1904 and American air power to sea. Moffett served as the 1914, as a centuries-old European empire and chief of the Navys Bureau of Aeronautics from unaccustomed to war for several decades, played its inception in 1921 until his untimely death in its own lively role in pre-war great power 1933. Unlike previous biographies, this work is a diplomacy. Few realized when war finally broke short synopsis of an earlier manuscript on out in 1914 that the empire had but four years Moffetts life that concentrated on his contribu- left, or that its newly expanded and potentially tions to US Naval Aviation. The authors objec- powerful navy would also disappear in late 1918: tive was to find "the man" among a mass of Sondhaus has written detailed chapters on documents that revealed little about his personal- how an allegedly land-locked empire — which ity. This was no easy task — Admiral Moffett indeed it never was during the late nineteenth and separated his private life from his professional early twentieth centuries with its long Croatian life, and very little of his personal correspondence coastline on the Adriatic — became a self-suffi- has survived. Nevertheless, the Colettas have cient sea-power. In contrast, Vegos overall done an admirable job. emphasis on diplomatic history understandably Moffetts pivotal role in "getting aircraft to gives such complex developments more cursory sea on the back of the fleet" is a familiar story to treatment: In "Summary and Conclusions" the students of the US Navy: Moffetts early naval compact closing chapter that would have served career was typical of the period: By the time he the book better at its beginning, Vego writes: "by was posted to the Great Lakes Naval Training 1904, the Dual Monarchy possessed the solid Station in 1914, he had served in more than industrial base needed for the maintenance of a twenty ships ranging from windjammers to strong navy and merchant marine. Six years later, battleships. As Commanding Officer of the Naval Austria-Hungary became almost entirely self- Training Station, Moffett acquired an apprecia- sufficient in the construction of its naval needs tion for, and love of, aviation. Indeed, with the and armaments." Had this statement been his help of wealthy industrialists, Moffett formed the books opener, readers with little or no prior Great Lakes Aeronautical Society . More impor- knowledge of Austria-Hungary as a sea-power tant, Moffett had formed important and lasting would better have understood from the start why relationships with local businessmen and politi- the Habsburg empires foreign policy before 1914 cians which he would come to depend upon for always included naval strategy. This was the case political favours. even when this tinier Austro-Hungarian version Following World War I, Moffett assumed of the contemporary Pax Britannica meant no command of Mississippi, one of the Navys more than enabling Vienna to maintain control of superdreadnoughts. That same year, 1919, he had the Adriatic Sea with its strategic opening to the a wooden platform built on top of one of Missis- Ionian and Mediterranean Seas against the power- sippi's turrets from which a small plane could fly ful Italian Navy on the one shore and the oppos- off. The following year, when turret platforms 126 The Northern Mariner proved unsuitable, Moffett pressed for the intro- Paul Kemp: U-Boats Destroyed: German Subma- duction of catapults. In 1920, Moffett, witnessed rine Losses in the World Wars. Annapolis: Naval first-hand the superior capabilities of airplanes in Institute Press, 1997.288 pp., glossary, bibliogra- spotting the fleets gunfire during its annual phy, indices. US $32.95, Cdn $45.95, cloth; gunnery exercises. Convinced of the merits of ISBN 1-55750-859-3. Canadian distributor, naval aviation Moffett pressed for the creation of Vanwell Publishing, St. Catharines, ON. a bureau of aeronautics. Brigadier General William Mitchell, former German submarines paid a terrible price in the head of the Army Air Service in Fr ance, had other two World Wars: 178 were lost in the First World ideas however. He proposed a separate and War and 784 were lost in the Second. Paul independent air service encompassing naval Kemps U-Boats Destroyed provides details of aviation: Prior to 1919 the US Navy was uncom- the loss of every U-boat sunk during the two mitted to aviation, but Mitchells proposal set off wars, arranged in chronological order by the date alarm bells within the navy and marked the of loss: With each U-boat he includes the name of beginning of a lengthy inter-service rivalry for its commanding officer, the date, location, and control of naval aviation played out between cause of its loss, number of casualties, and a Mitchell and Moffett. narrative description of its destruction. He does On 12 July 1921, Moffett and his suppo rters not include the losses of Germanys wartime won a key battle when the Bureau of Aeronautics allies. The book fills a void in naval historiogra- (BuAer) was created with Moffett — the first "air phy: existing reference works on U-boat losses admiral" in the US Navy — appointed as its chief. are incomplete or long out of date. Naval histori- During his tenure as Chief of the Bureau of ans have revised the record of the loss of many U- Aeronautics Moffett introduced several important boats in recent years and Kemp brings this initiatives including revision of the Navys pro- research together in one well-organized volume. curement policies and the introduction of the five- The book is particularly valuable for World year reserve program that provided many of the War I because it provides the names of warships aviators for World War II: Less successful poli- or aircraft responsible for sinking U-boats which cies, however, were the introduction of the flying were not provided by earlier authorities for that deck cruiser, the rigid airship program which was war: A reading of the accounts of submarine abandoned in 1935 shortly after his death, and the losses from the 1914-1918 war holds some sur- building of small aircraft carriers. "He misjudged prises. The cause of loss of a high proportion of the value of airships and of the flying deck cruis- U-boats is not known. Many disappeared at sea ers, and erred in his preference for small rather without trace, claimed by mechanical failure, bad than large fleet carriers." [231] That said, Admiral drill, drifting mines, or other marine accidents. Moffetts most impo rtant contribution was his Some patterns also become apparent: during the campaign to indoctrinate the Navy as a whole to early years heavily-gunned decoy merchant the value of aviation for the defence of the nation. vessels (known as Q-ships) were effective U-boat This book is an important contribution to the killers but in the last two years of the war their scholarship despite its flaws. The publication is successes tapered off when U-boat tactics riddled with typographical errors —as many as changed. On the other hand, the first U-boat sunk three to four per page — which detract from the by an aircraft occurred in September 1917. Some flow of the book: In addition, there are problems of the famous commanders who lost submarines with capitalization, improper line-spacing and in the First World War included Otto Weddigen, footnoting style, missing words and parentheses, who had torpedoed and sank three British cruisers and inconsistencies with the font: These problems in one day, and Karl Dönitz, Commander-in- should have been caught before the book went to Chief of German U-boats in World War II. print: In this reviewers opinion, these egregious For that war, the loss of the U-boat of one of errors mar what is otherwise an excellent book: the most famous commanders has been revised: U-47, which, under the command of Gunther Shawn Cafferky Prien, had sunk HMS Royal Oak in Scapa Flow, Victoria, British Columbia was thought to have been destroyed in an attack Book Reviews 127 by HMS Wolverine. It is now known that the Robert Jackson. The Royal Navy in World War II: destroyer had attacked another U-boat which Shrewsbu ry, Shrops.: Airlife Publishing, 1997 survived to record the encounter in its war diary. and Annapolis: Naval Institute Press, 1998. 176 In the absence of reliable evidence, Kemp specu- pp., photographs, maps, appendices, index. lates that an accident or a drifting mine claimed £19.95, US $34.95, cloth; ISBN 1-85310-714-X Priens boat. From a reading of U-Boats De- (Airlife), 1-55750-712-0 (NIP). Distributed in stroyed, the trend appears to be to attribute more Canada by Vanwell Publishing, St. Catharines, U-boat losses to marine accident or mechanical ON. failure than was previously thought the case: When firm evidence of a kill had been lacking, This crisply written book covers the six-year assessments in the immediate post-war period campaign of the Royal Navy in just over 150 tended to credit U-boat losses to promising pages, many of them taken up with the more than attacks carried out in the area at the right time by 150 photographs and maps included in this slim Allied units. Recent research has shown that volume. Given the remarkable amount of activity another U-boat was often in fact the target of this period of the Royal Navys history encom- these attacks or that the supposed victim radioed passed, it will come as no surprise that this book base sometime after the attack, forcing a revision does not provide much depth in its treatment of of the record: events. It covers all the salient events, usually Two such revisions of interest to Canadians with a pithy analysis but sometimes with only a include credit for the sinking of U-484 which has quick overview or summary of the results. The been taken away from HMCS Dunver and book has neither footnotes nor bibliography, but Hespeler and awarded to two British warships. it is generally well researched and errors are few: Conversely, it is now believed that HMCS The author suggests a bias towards naval Drumheller played a role in the sinking of U-338 aviation in his brief acknowledgements, and which was formerly attributed to the RAF. In the many of the pictures and some of the text does preface, Kemp acknowledges that his book is not reflect a strong interest in the aerial aspects of the the last word on the subject and that research will naval war. This bias is not overwhelming, al- continue to lead to revised assessments. Since the though some unevenness in the treatment of publication of the book, German research has cast events is occasionally evident. Perhaps the most doubt on RCAF claims for the sinking of U-669 noticeable example of this is Jacksons discussion and U-420 in 1943; their cause of loss is now of Operation Pedestal, the three-day convoy battle listed as unknown. Similarly, Kemp was not fought to re-supply Malta in August 1942. In this aware that U-I84 radioed base a few hours after operation the Royal Navy endeavoured to escort the attack by a Norwegian co rvette in November fourteen merchant ships into the beleaguered 1942 which has been credited with its destruction; island in the face of hundreds of Axis aircraft as its cause of loss is now uncertain. well as significant submarine and surface forces. Some additions would have improved the The first two days of the battle involved RN volume. Statistical tables on rates of loss by aircraft carriers, and are covered in some detail in month and year and percentages of losses to almost two pages of text. The climactic third day, different causes would have enhanced the value when almost all of the merchant ships were sunk, of the book to researchers. Sometimes a notable is accorded a brief three sentences: event like the first U-boat sunk by American The pictures are the best part of the book. All forces in the Second World War will go unre- are black and white, and while many are quite marked. Still, U-Boats Destroyed is an important small, most are crisp and clear: the author and addition to the naval bookshelf and will take its publisher did excellent work with the graphical place along side Jurgen Rohwers Axis Submarine production of the book. The pictures are all well Successes as one of the indispensable references chosen, and if there are more of aircraft than some for the study of German submarine warfare. might expect, all are interesting. There are two appendices, the first showing Robert Fisher "Principal Royal Navy Ship Losses 1939-1945" Nepean, Ontario and the second "Auxiliary Trawler Losses" for the 128 The Northern Mariner same period. That these lists come to ten pages 33,000-mile passage during which she voyaged speaks grimly of the costs of the war to the RN. mostly alone and over dangerous waters: Another Those who have read widely about the Royal seven war-time voyages across the dangerous sea- Navy in World War II will find nothing new here, lanes of the North Atlantic to Mediterranean and but may enjoy the quick overview: Those new to European seaports are well documented, includ- this period of naval history will find the book a ing her last wartime voyage in convoy ON-305. good read and summary: And the pictures are She continued in se rvice until November worth a quick look by all: 1946, when she arrived in New York City and was transferred to the Bo ard of Education of New D.M. McLean York City for use as a vocational high school: Orleans, Ontario There she remained for the next thirty-six years: In 1982 the John W. Brown was placed in the Sherod Cooper: Liberty Ship: The Voyages of the Reserve Fleet: Then, in 1985, she was acquired John W. Brown 1942-1946. Annapolis: Naval by members of Project Liberty Ship and berthed Institute Press, 1997. xvi + 244 pp:, photographs, at Baltimore. There she now se rves as a National maps, notes, bibliography, index: US $34.95, Cdn Monument, after volunteers expended more than $48.95, cloth; ISBN 1-55750-135-1: Canadian 300,000 man-hours to restore the vessel to her distributor, Vanwell Publishing, St: Catharines, original wartime configuration: When she visited ON. Halifax, Nova Scotia in the summer of 1994, every thorough detail onboard, including her In this engrossing book, Sherod Cooper, a former wartime armament, reflected a truly unaltered merchant seaman, recounts the story of the SS example of the original. John W: Brown, one of the last two surviving In Liberty Ship, Sherod Cooper provides us examples of the most renowned one-of-a-kind with an opportunity to learn about the life and cargo ship ever built: The fleet of 2,710 hastily time of a single merchant ship, in war and peace. built but highly functional Liberty ships was the Yet his book is equally important for the way it product of the greatest emergency ship-building records the unbounding contribution made by the program ever and contributed considerably to countless thousands of unsung men and women bringing World War II to a quicker end: The John who built and sailed these ships at a time in W Brown is therefore a truly remarkable vessel — history when the allied world stood on the brink a survivor of the most protracted and unremitting of defeat. The author as well as the publisher sea-war in human history: therefore deserve a hearty commendation for their The book opens with a carefully researched excellent contribution to an impo rtant branch of chapter on Liberty ships generally, and then leads maritime history; theirs is a very readable book, into the construction of hull number 312 at the a genuinely absorbing and permanent treatise of Bethlehem-Fairfield Yard in Baltimore: Named in inestimable value that belongs in every library. honour of an American labour leader (who, incidentally, was born in Prince Edward Island, R.F. Latimer Canada), the John W: Brown served valiantly, Dartmouth, Nova Scotia steaming 139,000 miles and carrying some 114,000 tons of cargo as she and her sisters Andrew Hendrie. Canadian Squadrons in Coastal served in the cause of liberty , a cause for which Command. St. Catharines: Vanwell Publishing, they were aptly named. 1997. vii + 208 pp., map, photographs, appendix, The book features many highlights of the bibliography, glossary, index. $35, cloth; ISBN 1- illustrious ships career, including her spectacular 55125-038-1. maiden voyage from the United States to the Panama Canal, thence via the west coast of South The wartime exploits of Canadians operating as America, Cape Horn, Cape of Good Hope and part of the Royal Air Force between 1939 and Indian Ocean to the Persian Gulf, returning via 1945, either as members of RAF squadrons or as the Cape and South Atlantic to New York via members of RCAF squadrons within the RAF, Bahia, Brazil. In all, it was an eight-month, have been widely documented: In particular, the Book Reviews 129

record of 6 (RCAF) Group in Bomber Command reflects the contributions of survivors. Tabular and of Canadian fighter pilots received much details of attacks made against submarine and attention in 1995 during the commemorations of surface targets and comparative details of repre- VE-Day. The contribution to victory of the Cana- sentative aircraft flown and their squadron codes dian squadrons operated by or in conjunction are provided: Also included is a selection of with RAF Coastal Comm and has received far less photographs of varying quality, some of which attention, though it was scarcely a less hazardous are well known while others of crews and individ- undertaking. Canadian Squadrons in Coastal uals are likely from personal collections. No Command attempts to redress the balance. credits are provided for the photographs. A map The book relates the history of eight Cana- showing most of the operational area of the dian squadrons which were associated with RAF Canadian squadrons is included along with a Coastal Command. Six were formed specifically glossary of terms and abbreviations employed. to operate within it: 404, 407, 413 and 415 in Unfortunately, despite a well-intentioned 1 941 with 422 and 423 following in 1942). effort by the publishers, who are well known as Number 162 Squadron from the RCAFs E astern the Canadian distributors of military, naval and Air Command was loaned to Coastal Command aviation titles, this book is disappointing in many for the last seventeen months of the European war respects: Most significantly, from a substantive and 10 Squadron RCAF operating long range perspective it is almost completely devoid of patrol flights between Gander and Iceland came analysis, taking instead, within the simple chro- partially within its operational control. In addi- nological and functional sub-theme framework tion, although not mentioned in the book, No: 405 noted earlier, a "stream of consciousness" ap- Squadron, RCAF was loaned from Bomber proach to the recording of events: This almost Command to Coastal Comm and in the critical certainly reflects the information gleaned from the period from October 1942 to February 1943. operational diaries of the squadrons concerned The account covers the large number of fleshed out by the recollections of aircrew with aircraft types used ranging from obsolescent whom the author corresponded. There are also Handley Page "Hampden" twin-engined torpedo omissions. The temporary loan of No. 405 Squad- bombers and Short "Sunderland" long range ron, RCAF to Coastal Comm and is not mentioned flying boats to Fairey "Albacore" biplanes and at all. Nor is the policy issue of "Canadianization" their tasks of strike, convoy escort and anti- which is covered in Volume 2 of The Official submarine duties. The area of operations covered History of the Royal Canadian Air Force, men- ranged from the No rth Atlantic and Western tioned in the books bibliography. Another regret- Approaches to the No rth Sea and the Bay of table omission is that of any comprehensive data Biscay. Examples are given of how they, in on the squadrons themselves, their numbers of common with other Coastal Comm and squadrons operations, commanding officers, bases, losses also participated in other duties such as the early awards and the higher formations to which they thousand-bomber raids of 1942: were assigned: Neither is there any final summary Tables provided as appendices credit the of the contribution they made. The story simply squadrons with sinking or damaging twenty-five peters out with the disbandment of No. 162 U-boats and almost a hundred surface vessels. Squadron in August, 1945. Although not provided by the author, we know Beyond that, the book requires a thorough from other sources that the price was some 160 editing for content and s tyle and its basic design aircraft and over six hundred aircrew lost, slightly is not well conceived. Non-standard abbreviations less than a typical Main Force heavy bomber are employed for some ranks, the units of mea- squadron operating continually over the same surement for speed are not universal although forty-month period. such information is easily obtained, and typo- The recounting of this operational history is graphical errors were allowed to slip by as, in divided into a chronology by year and then sub- Appendix D where 423 Squadron has digits divided into the basic record of the strike and transposed. A two-column layout with copious ASW activities. The research apparently took into subheads is used and it seems out of place in a account both primary and secondary sources and book of this size. 130 The Northern Mariner

Despite these shortcomings, this book will in every war, up to and including the 1991 Per- appeal to those readers wishing access to the sian Gulf conflict:) largely unpublished detail on the operations In the last chapter, Mackenzie assesses the flown by Canadian squadrons in Coastal Com- gains and losses derived from World War II: He mand and many of the individuals concerned: The defines his personal gains as learning to deal with definitive story, however, still remains to be told. people of varied backgrounds, the opportunity to see the world, and the benefits of military disci- Christopher J. Terry pline: His personal loss stemmed from the time Ottawa, Ontario spent away from a civilian occupation while in the service. More broadly, he regards as benefi- Hector Mackenzie: Observations: Bishop cial to British society the breaking down of the Auckland, Durham: Pentland Press, 1997. 307 rigid British class structure, the affirmation of the pp., photographs. £18:50, cloth; ISBN 1-85821- indomitable English spirit, and the development 502-1: of a "caring society" through a social welfare net (though subsequent developments made that Hector Mackenzie wrote his book in response to social welfare net a problem). The costs to British the eternal question asked of most war veterans, society include the loss of life, the incredible " What did you do in the war, Daddy?" Observa- financial burden to Britain, and the paradox of tions is therefore an addition to the already-stag- American postwar aid to Germany and Japan gering number of World War II memoirs: Specifi- which helped those former enemies prosper in the cally, it is Mackenzies attempt to capture his long run more than Britain, the bankrupt victor: recollections of life in the wartime Royal Navy (This concept was satirized, of course, in Leonard and its Fleet Air Arm for his family and a more Wibberlys 1959 novel, The Mouse that Roared.) general readership. This is not a serious, scholarly While readers of Observations should not study, although Mackenzie does devote the last expect a scholarly treatment of naval life in chapter of his book to a discussion of the after- World War II, the book does se rve as a useful math of World War H: source of information on the often humdrum life What can be learned from this book? First, it in the Royal Navy in those years. Subject to its is an account of one mans service in the Royal inherent limitations, it is recommended. Navy. As such, much is here: travels to foreign climes — the USA, South A frica, Algeria, and the Robert L: Shoop Arabian peninsula, among others: The contrast Colorado Springs, Colorado between the relative prosperity of American life even during wartime and the rigors of British life Steven T: Ross. American War Plans 1941-1945. on the home front is captured vividly: There are London and Portland, OR: Frank Cass, 1997. xx accounts of the inevitable romantic interludes, of + 204 pp., maps, select bibliography, index. US boring duty watches, the endless minutiae of $39.50, cloth; ISBN 0-7146-4634-2; US $19.50, serv ice life, training programs, visits home, and paper; ISBN 0-7146-4194-4. Distributed in No rth the privations of British life during the war, and America by International Specialized Book some combat narratives. Services, Portland, OR. Mackenzie goes beyond that to discuss areas not often mentioned in wartime accounts: naval Although pre-1914 war planning of the Great discipline (very harsh but not brutal); the treat- Powers has been the focus of scholarly study, that ment of pregnant servicewomen (summarily by the United States has received little a ttention: discharged, regardless of marital status); naval Edward Miller analyzed War Plan Orange (1991) funerals (sometimes unfortunately botched); and — a work surprisingly absent from the bibliogra- several minor issues: The perils of having war- phy of this book — but no other war plan has time allies are also shown — Mackenzie relates received similar attention. The only published one incident where American fighter planes study of the combined pl ans of the Army and the mistook an FAA aircraft for the enemy and shot Navy, to say nothing of the Air Force, for any war it down. (The problem of "friendly fire" is found or era is Ross American War Plans 1945-1950 Book Reviews 131

(1988): Ross also has edited five volumes of the Philippines blocked the southwestern prong of American War Plans, 1919-1941 (1992). the dual advance, allowing Central Pacific forces Thus one approaches Ross most recent work via Okinawa), with anticipation. He opens with a brief survey of Some readers may be disappointed that Ross strategy at the outbreak of war and the forced does not devote more space to the process of abandonment of pre-war plans when Japan de- planning and war plans themselves or to the role stroyed much of the fleet at Pearl Harbor and of air power in the formulation of strategy. This Germany threatened to capture the Suez C anal is not to detract from his accomplishment, an and to cripple the Soviet Union. During 1942 insightful analysis of Allied strategy, but to wish "Europe First" plans gave way to limited offen- he would now produce a more comprehensive sives aimed at containing Japan in the Pacific and study, one focusing on the formulation, content to landing an army in No rth Africa to relieve and execution of war pl ans per se: pressure on British forces in Egypt. Shifting emphasis, the rest of the book James C. Bradford focuses on the formulation of strategy by Allied Bryan, Texas leaders and, as his subtitle, The Test of Battle, implies, the in fluence of operations on strategy. Ian Buxton and Ben Warlow. To Sail No More. Ross depicts 1943 as a year of consolidation, Liskeard, Cornwall: Maritime Books, 1997. 96 during which Britain and America reached a pp., photographs, index. £14.95, paper; ISBN 0- tentative consensus on basic strategy and solidi- 907771-64-5. fied their positions in Europe and Asia, but during which neither nation developed specific opera- When I was asked to review this small volume, it tional plans for either theater, much less for any was suggested that — as a Naval Constructor — I campaign. Indeed, Ross admits that by 1943 "the would perhaps not be greatly interested, that Second World War was in large measure a war of indeed "you prefer design and gestation, not production and attrition" [64] rather than one of dismantling and termination." It seemed to me strategy, war planning, and execution. that this splendid phrase demanded a greater From mid-1943 through the wars end, Ross audience and I am glad to provide it. focus remains the debates over strategy rather The intent of the authors of To Sail No More than on the process of war planning or the war is to review the relatively short-lived industry, plans themselves, perhaps because the formula- following World War II, of scrapping and re- tion of specific plans was rendered virtually cycling the raw material of naval vessels. A impossible when British and American leaders government agency, the British Iron Steel were so divided on how best to implement strat- Company (BISCO), administered the industry on egy (the Soviet Union is virtually ignored): behalf of the Admiralty, disposing of surplus Moreover neither the civilian nor the uniformed vessels to some two dozen ship-breaking facili- leaders of each nation could even agree on which ties. Usually these consisted primarily of a tidal campaigns to press most vigorously: In Asia, for berth so that, as the vessel became progressively example, Winston Churchill and Franklin Roose- dismembered, it could be advanced, to end finally velt argued over whether to attack the Japanese as some skeletal remnants on a mud be rth. empire on the west through Burma or across This is a curious little book — less than a Sumatra. Meanwhile, American generals and hundred pages, numerous photographs, and very admirals in Washington and the war zone com- little text. Yet the range of activities involved in peted to make the Central or Southwest Pacific the breaking up of warships has been thoroughly the main line of advance toward Japan. Eventu- reviewed and appropriately recorded. in consider- ally, the United States pursued both approaches able detail — with photographs that include the "as much by accident as by design:" The avail- three Canadian Tribals: Nootka, Cayuga, and ability of resources often determined the selection Micmac. Some might regard this as somewhat of of objectives (as in the case of Luzon vice a hum-drum subject. Yet the endeavour presented Formosa) and events on the battlefield set opera- some interesting technical problems: toppling the tional timetables (as when Japanese resistance in mast and superstructure of an aircraft carrier, well 132 The Northern Mariner

beyond reach of available cranes; burning Soviet fleet after the collapse of Leninism and the through the twelve-inch thick barrels of 15- and complex re-birth of the Russian fleet. 16-inch guns; and, interestingly, having a garden In some respects, there is so much new in- furniture organization to utilize teak decking. Nor formation in the book that it can impede a serious was the endeavour financially insignificant, with re-evaluation of the rationale for the various nearly half a million pounds sterling surplus programs and of the concepts of matching weap- available from the demolition of a battleship. As ons systems to specific designs. Yet the data on well, there was always the opportunity to accrue the various designs is presented largely by design additional funds from nickel bearing armour class and usually coincides with NATO categori- plate, copper wire, and bronze propellers — the zation which makes the book fairly easy to use. latter realizing £300 per ton vis-à-vis £12 for Also, the Editors frequent and often copious steel. Even bringing the vessels to the breakers notes are a great help in understanding and using was somewhat of an adventure, with grounding of the huge amount of data found in the book: the unwieldy tows being not unusual: Indeed, the The problem this truly fascinating book towage of HMAS Australia from Sydney to presents is one of how to re-assess the earlier Barrow — 101 days at 4.8 knots — must be some- western analyses of the Soviet Navy: For in- thing of a record. Sometimes, however, the hulls stance, how well does the ground-breaking work were used as experimental vessels in testing the of Mike McGwire and his colleagues stand up? effects of various explosive charges — perhaps a We have tended to hold the Soviet five-year more honourable "death" for a warship. planning cycle as the time-line against which Nevertheless, this volume will probably not decisions and designs could be evaluated; the appeal to the general reader. If there is a connec- Pavlov book throws some doubt on that concept. tion with a particular vessel, then there might be Although several designs were clearly locked into some reward: This reviewer served in Rodney and the central economic planning model, a number took Vanguard on her measured mile trails, so it of major shipbuilding decisions were not: It might was nostalgic to see their ultimate demise in the seem that some of the decisions on strategic 1950s and 60s. Still, we must welcome this designs, such as the Typhoon-class SSBN, were account of a somewhat morbid "industry" which made outside the five-year pl anning model. There peaked in about 1950 and was essentially con- are even references to a ten-year plan for the cluded by the 1990s: Perhaps, in view of the price development of the Soviet fleet. — about $30 — you might try and persuade your Another intriguing aspect of this remarkable local maritime museum to obtain a copy: book are the many gratuitous comments about the fate of some designs and designers and the obvi- S: Mathwin Davis ous impact of politics at the end of the Stalin era. Kingston, Ontario Invariably, these raise more questions than one could expect a work of this nature to answer. A.S: Pavlov; Gregory Tokar (trans.); Norman Why, for instance, was the seventh Typhoon- Friedman (ed.). Warships of the USSR and Russia class SSBN broken up on the slip? Also, the saga 1945-1955. Annapolis: Naval Institute Press, of the design and construction of the large aircraft 1997. xxix + 321 pp:, illustrations, photographs, carriers Kuznetzov and Varyag is only touched index. US $59.95, Cdn $84, cloth; ISBN 1- upon, yet the few glimpses offered are enough to 55750-671-X. Canadian distributor, Vanwell spark the imagination: One has to bear in mind Publishing, St: Catharines, ON. that the data was assembled by a naval architect and did not necessarily focus on the naval staff As Norman Friedman notes in his Introduction, and political planning processes or on the opera- "This is a remarkable book." Although it is not an tional aspects of the various designs. Let us hope all-encompassing compendium of Soviet and that these will all come later. Russian warships and auxiliaries, it goes a very The possibilities for research that Pavlovs long way in filling in the gaps in weste rn under- book creates are seemingly endless. Not only will standing of the Soviet fleets: The book also goes we have to go back and re-examine the early into some of the details of the demise of the western analyses, there are also some interesting Book Reviews 133

comments on basing, especially of submarines, described in 860 pages, about 2400 equipment or that warrant further examination. And the entire system entries, and almost a million words. Its history of Soviet submarine accidents will need predecessor, The Naval Institute Guide To World re-thinking in light of Pavlovs comments about Naval Weapons Systems 1991-1992 (Annapolis, various fires and accidents. Another line of 1991) was compiled at the end of the Cold War. research may lie in the actual designers them- This volume spans the momentous changes in selves: Pavlov is careful to associate each design maritime strategy and information technologies and often the modifications with one of the since then — the so-called "Revolution in Military designers and thus with the design bureaus. This Affairs" — and which continue today. It is not is clearly significant. But why? Did the designers easy to read, for it assumes a detailed and com- have a degree of freedom in interpreting the staff prehensive knowledge of sensors, combat direc- requirements? Friedman offers some insight into tion systems and weapons systems. It begins with this puzzle in his Introduction, when he states that fifty-three pages of "prefatory notes" on radar, the Central Design Bureaus could sometimes "sell electronic warfare, sonar, optronics and infrared the navy something quite different from that devices, lasers, identification (IFF), and missile envisaged (by the naval staff)." [xvii] guidance along with company consolidations, What this book means is that the study of the system designations and abbreviations. The main Soviet Navy did not die with the end of the Cold body of the book describes sensors, combat War; rather, the next phase is just beginning. direction and weapons systems by country of Does all this really matter? Is it still relevant to origin in chapters on Su rveillance and Control, know how the Soviet Navy evolved? The answer, Tactical Data Systems, Strategic Strike Systems, of course, is "Yes:" There is a need to understand Strike/Surface Warfare, Anti-aircraft Warfare, the planning process by which the Soviet de- Electronic Warfare, Anti-submarine Warfare, and signed the fleet upon which so much western Mine and Mine Countermeasures: The volume naval effort and money were spent in seeking a concludes with an Index and an Addendum. counter. In exactly the same way that we still find The book is aimed at the systems specialist the development of Tirpitzs navy or that of and the defence, computer and telecommunica- Raeder two decades later intriguing, the evolution tions industries, much of it reading like a cata- of the Soviet fleet, especially under the leadership logue of brochures from arms and technical trade of Sergei Gorshkov and its post-communist shows. Prior knowledge of equipment designa- transition, is no less fascinating. tions is necessary even to use the Index intelli- Pavlovs book is a first attempt to throw gently. The level of detail is impressive but much-needed new light on an important topic. It caution is required. Some equipment descriptions provides an enormous amount of food for thought are dated and others are inaccurate: For example, as well as being a major reference work. How- on page 414, the Canadian Patrol Frigate Class is ever, it needs the accompanying analysis of the shown to have only six sets of RIM-7M Sea decision-making process to make it complete: We Sparrow missiles completed by 1987. In fact, all can only hope that this will be the next offering. systems are installed in the twelve "City"-class frigates. On page 32, Stand-Alone Link II is not Peter Haydon fitted in the Royal Navys Type 42 destroyers as Bedford, Nova Scotia stated, but is used in ships without an automated command and control system and the Nimrod Norman Friedman. The Naval Institute Guide to maritime patrol aircraft. World Naval Weapons Systems 1997-1998. Country information and details of weapons Annapolis: Naval Institute Press, 1997. liii + 808 suites by class of ships is dispersed but can be pp., photographs, figures, illustrations, tables, gleaned with substantial page shuffling. To find index, addendum: US $175, Cdn $245, cloth; details about the Canadian Patrol Frigates weap- ISBN 1-55750-268-4: Canadian distributor, ons systems, one has to go to pages 413 and 460, Vanwell Publishing, St. Catharines, ON. under "United States," to find the Sea Sparrow surface-to-air missile system and the Phalanx This is an encyclopedia of naval weapons systems Close-In-Weapons System; then to page 257, 134 The Northern Mariner

under "United States" in the Strike/Surface War- prevalence of target ambiguity. Combat direction fare chapter, to look up the Harpoon surface-to- systems may not be as visually impressive as sen- surface missile; and finally to page 693, in the sors and weapons, but they are the key to reach- Anti-submarine Warfare chapter, again under the ing full platform potential. Likewise, at the Task United States, to find out about the MK46 MODS Group and Fleet level, command information (Neartip) torpedo. The book is not well organized systems are essential to reach strategic and opera- to bring out country-to-country comparisons and tional potential: Given the cluttered conditions of should be read in conjunction with other refer- sea-land-air warfare as it evolves in coastal areas ences such as Jane's Fighting Ships or The Naval and enclosed seas, accurate and real-time combat Institute Guide to Combat Fleets of the World: direction is not only the key to success but the On the other hand, if you can follow him, antidote to failure. The USS Vincennes Iranian Norman Friedmans Introduction, parts of the Air Bus disaster in 1988 in the Gulf was as im- Prefatory Notes and his preambles at the begin- portant an incident in pointing out the need for ning of some of the chapters and country sections, accurate combat direction and a recognized particularly those on the United States, provide maritime picture as was the sinking of the Eilat in excellent descriptions and analyses on how naval the 1967 Arab-Israeli War, the prelude to the age technology is adapting to commercial information of the tactical missile in sea warfare: technologies, new concepts of littoral sea-l and-air Evidence of technology adapting to the new warfare, and the proliferation of naval platforms geographic realities of coastal sea warfare and the and weapons systems in coastal and island states globalization of naval weapons systems can be in the Mediterranean and Middle East, South Asia gleaned from this voluminous book. Some of the and the Western Pacific: (Lists of users by coun- woods that can be discerned from the trees in- try appear at the end of each equipment entry.) clude the merging of land strike and surface For those with the necessary knowledge, warfare capabilities; warships in Theatre Missile there is some discerning information. The section Defence; navigational warfare (GPS); data fusion on Sonar in Prefatory Notes is an excellent histor- (intra-ship, inter-ship and formation, and interna- ical review of the subject as well as its application tional security systems and Fleet); the integration to surface, submarine and airborne platforms. On of surveillance, search and attack radar and sonar the other hand, the section on Optronics and IR systems; the growth of integrated shipborne Devices is difficult to follow without detailed electronic support, attack and protection systems technical knowledge: Descriptions of "Spot (ESM, ECM and ECCM respectively); the need Trackers" and "Imagers" [xxxii] or Forward for tailored Electronic Warfare threat signature Looking Infrared (FLIR) [xxxiii] as "180 detec- libraries; the merging of EW with electronic tors in vertical line array..." does not tell the intelligence (ELINT); advances in infrared and general reader much. This reviewer had to read a optically guided and controlled weapons with number of primers to refresh his memory on the laser attack systems; the return of active sonar in basic principles of air defence, surface warfare, wide-area search along with the adaptation of anti-submarine warfare, radars, and command towed arrays as shallow water bistatic receivers; systems and naval electronics warfare, in publica- continuing work on non-acoustic submarine tions such as Navies in the Nuclear Age by detection; low-cost ASW weapons for shallow Conway Maritime Press, to reach a threshold of water defence against submarines; and integrated knowledge necessary to understand, even par- surface ship torpedo defence systems. tially, the authors detailed descriptions. As Admiral Richard Hill said in his review in Nevertheless, for those who persevere, the the Naval Review (January 1998), this book is a book is insightful as well as character-building. technical and professional piece that makes no The chapters on Su rveillance and Control and concessions to amateurs, but it is a testimony to Tactical Data Systems underline the point made the personal achievement of Norman Friedman: by Friedman in the Introduction, that Command and Control (C2) systems, both intra and inter- Fred Crickard platform, are key developments in li ttoral warfare Halifax, Nova Scotia with its need for rapid reaction time and the Book Reviews 135

Winifred Quick Collins; with Herbert M. Levine. the security clearance was left in an indeterminate More Than A Uniform: A Navy Woman in a Navy state so that the women never knew why they had Man's World: Denton: University of North Texas been denied a promotion. These investigations Press, 1997: xxiii + 241 pp., photographs, appen- and other discriminatory practices were quickly dix, index: US $16.95, paper; ISBN 1-57441-022- ended by the author. 9: Perhaps the most fascinating aspect of this book is the authors attitude towards women in Winifred Quick Collins has lived an extraordinary the Navy as a whole. In order to increase morale life and her autobiography makes for extraordi- and enlistment, Captain Quick focused on both narily good reading. Rising from Sub-Lieutenant the personal and the professional. Invisible barri- to the highest ranking woman in the US Navy, ers to advancement were made visible and then Winifred Quick shaped naval policy concerning removed: Educational opportunities for women women and the jobs they would perform. Her were increased, as were promotions and posting work lead to a direct increase in enlistment, opportunities. She designed new and improved morale, educational standards and opportunity for uniforms which were easier to care for and which advancement. Most importantly, the ch anges were "flattered" the female form. A woman, it seems, real, substantial and permanent. should not have to look like a man in order to The author enlisted in the WAVES during succeed in a mans navy. World War II. Her graduate studies and work This is the essence of Captain Quicks long experience in personnel made her the ideal candi- and highly successful career. She, and the women date for the job of WAVE personnel officer, and she supported, succeeded because of their intelli- she took on the position with an eye to shaping gence and superior job performance. But her navy policy towards women and the jobs they approach was often contradictory; she struggled would perform. Remaining in the se rvice after the to remove sexist and gender specific discrepan- war, Mrs. Quick eventually rose to the rank of cies in personnel evaluation and career progres- Captain which, at that time, was the highest rank sion, yet she emphasized physical differences in for female officers in the Navy. dress and personal grooming. Women should be More Than a Uniform is superior to many of allowed to wear their hair longer because women the accounts of ex-service women because it does "look better" with long hair. Navy women were to not shy away from the discrimination and double be smart and well turned out; she decreased the standards that have plagued women who choose acceptable weight limits to ten pounds beneath military service as a career: The author does not the insurance industrys standards. The mess dismiss the hurdles women faced with that time- dress was redesigned to include a skirt with a slit less excuse, "But that is the way people thought up the side and a tiara-style head band. back then..:." Instead, she highlights the prob- This work is strictly autobiographical and as lems, how they were created and usually, how such, the author shies away from abstract discus- they were solved. For instance, in one of the more sions of the role and significance of female par- remarkable accounts of this book, Captain Quick ticipation in the US Navy. Captain Quick does describes her investigation of inadequate promo- not evaluate the changes wrought in society by tions for senior female officers. It turned out that service women, changes in military thinking or navy intelligence investigators routinely accused the attitudes of servicewomen themselves about women of lesbianism because they may have their role. What this book does chronicle, how- been seen holding hands with another woman or ever, is the extraordinary life of one of the most because the two women shared an apartment: powerful women in the US Navy and her contri- Instead of making a decision about the woman, butions to that service. Captain Quicks wit and intelligence would pass its repo rt filled with honesty makes this factual account a fascinating unsubstantiated innuendo on to the male officer tale. who would be employing the woman should she get the promotion. Most often, these male officers Barbara Ann Winters would refuse to consider the woman, with the Nanaimo, British Columbia result that the job then went to a male. Meanwhile