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BOOK REVIEWS John Hattendorf (ed.). Maritime History, Volume end of the eighteenth centuries. The authors have 2: The Eighteenth Century and The Classical Age laid out the problems and the history of the solu• of Sail. Open Forum Series; Malabar, FL: Krieger tions clearly, and while perhaps not to everyone's Publishing, 1997. xvi + 304 pp., illustrations, taste, an understanding of the subject is vital to figures, maps, photographs, chapter notes and anyone seeking to grasp the complexity and bibliographies, index. US $26.50, paper; ISBN 0- breadth of maritime history. While praising the 89464-944-2. inclusion of this section on navigation, however, the reviewer laments that a similar topic, like This is a collection of selected lectures delivered shiphandling, was not included in the collection. at the 1993 summer institute in early modern Daniel Baugh and N.A.M. Rodger each con• maritime history at the John Carter Brown Li• tributed three chapters to section three dealing brary in Providence, Rhode Island. It is the sec• with the Anglo-French struggle for empire. A ond such collection edited by Professor Hatten• brief, rather dated look at American commerce is dorf (see review in TNM/LMN VI, No.3: 49-50). also included here but serves no useful purpose. Like its predecessor, it aims to provide the reader Baugh and Rodger, on the other hand, present an with a general introduction to some of the major excellent overview of the major imperial conflict themes and scholarly debates in maritime history. that remained essentially maritime throughout the The subject is not widely taught in universities century. Their text introduces students to the and colleges and good general histories rarely distinctions between elements of naval power — serve as useful textbooks. Though idiosyncratic in ships, officers and men — and the foundations of the selection of topics, this volume meets its seapower — fighting ability, strategic comprehen• editor's purpose which is to introduce interested siveness, commercial and financial strength, and students to the arcane maritime world of the age political will. One might complain that their of sail and to render it more easily understood. treatment of the Royal Navy during the American The twenty-four brief chapters are arranged War of Independence smacks of special pleading in four sections that deal respectively with open• because America was not the Royal Navy's to ing the Pacific during the second age of discov• lose. But, in addition to providing a clear narra• ery, the science and practice of navigation, the tive, they introduce readers to some of the ques• Anglo-French struggle for empire, and the mari• tions being currently debated in the literature. time legacy of empire. Student and scholar alike And while it is not comprehensive, this feature will enjoy Glyndwr Williams's four chapters on adds interest to their treatment. the Pacific voyages. Written with grace and The four chapters by Roger Knight in the learning, they present a succinct overview of the final section on the maritime legacy of empire are precursors, the explorers and geographers, their equally valuable. The editor's inclusion of a chap• impact on science and philosophy, and the tragic ter on romanticism and the literature of the sea is aftermath of exploitation and death that followed misplaced. Knight, however, provides an excel• unrolling the chart of the vast Pacific Ocean. lent overview of the Atlantic economies during The next three sections, each containing five the score of years before 1800, the changing to eight chapters, are nearly twice as long as the technologies and materials introduced, the naval first and quite different in content and tone. More dimension of the Anglo-French wars during the obviously didactic, they are intended for under• Revolution and Empire, and the last years of graduate students — and perhaps their instructors naval sail. Though these topics may appear in search of reading assignments. Karel Davids eclectic, and certainly others may occur to read• and Willem Môrzer Bruyns each prepared four ers, Knight's cogent, concise style of writing chapters in section two covering the science and brings the volume nicely to a close. More than practice of navigation from the sixteenth to the other authors, Knight fulfils the editor's aim to 63 64 The Northern Mariner introduce students to problems and debates as but Scandinavian and German ship owners appre• well as to overviews. ciated its advantages. I for one cannot speak of it All things considered, this volume succeeds too highly from personal experience aboard the as an introductory textbook for undergraduates on four-masted barque Passai. Good grief, what sea power in the classic age of sail more success• would our lot have been if we still had to deal fully than did the first one published in 1996. The with long braces with a watch of eight or nine suggested readings that accompany each chapter men at best! are up to date and allow students to explore the In a section devoted to social history we find topics more fully. One irony lies in the choice of an article titled "Prayers yes - Schnapps, No; frontispiece. It portrays a giant French battleship, amity on board during a time of upheaval." It a first-rate from the navy of Louis XIV. Built examines conditions on mid-nineteenth-century during the seventeenth century, it never put to sea German merchant vessels, a time when seamen during the classic age of sail. demanded better food and reduced working hours while in port and that the consumption of alcohol James Pritchard be strictly prohibited because it endangered the Kingston, Ontario safety of the voyage and often lured masters and mates to excessive and rude behaviour. This Uwe Schnall and Ursula Feldkamp (eds.). problem surely existed in merchant fleets of other Deutsches Schiffahrtsarchiv XVIII (1995). Ham• nations as well and it is to be hoped that more burg: Ernst Kabel Verlag for the Deutsches work will be done on this particular and still Schiffahrtsmuseum, 1995. 336 pp., photographs, existing problem. Another article examines in illustrations (b+w, colour), figures, maps. DM 46, detail the accidental death in 1907 of an appren• paper; ISBN 3-8225-0360-6. tice of the German cargo-carrying training vessel, the Herzogin Sophie Charlotte belonging to the Here I am faced yet again with another of those North German Lloyd while in Sydney, Australia. splendid volumes produced by the Deutsche Under the heading of fisheries and whaling Schiffahrtsmuseum and Ernst Kabel Verlag. It is Uwe Steffen tells in a thorough manner with difficult indeed to sing its praises without repeat• beautiful illustrations the story of "Jonah and the ing myself, since much of what I said in my Great Fish," not only as he appears in the biblical review of Deutsches Schiffahrtsarchiv XVI story but also how this story permeates Jewish, (1993) in TNM/LMN V, No. 4 applies here. Christian and Islamic traditions. Klaus Barthel- In the section on merchant shipping, we find mess and Britta Schleicher elaborate on an hith• the memories of Captain Scharf, the last Master erto unknown pamphlet which contains a humor• of the North German Lloyd Europa, as well as the ous poem about Portugal's fishmongers and experiences of Gertrud Ferber who provided the peddlers of broadsides in the second half of the kind of services to passengers together with eighteenth century. It is a marvelously illustrated secretarial duties for the Master of the NDL and extremely well annotated article. Bremen which foreshadowed those of the cruise Very much closer to our time is an article by directors found on passenger liners today. Both Kurt Deggim who describes the beach fishery at articles make us aware of the political pressures Sorkau (in the former East Prussia) on the Baltic put on German merchant officers and crews by between 1930 and 1945. Boats, methods of the regime of the Third Reich. fishing, handling of the catch and working and The last article in this section is (surprisingly living conditions are covered in great detail and is for a German publication) devoted to Captain also well illustrated. J.C.B. Jarvis, the famous Scottish master mariner The German navy is treated by well-known whose invention of the brace winch earned him ship historian Arnold Kludas in an article on the sobriquet brace-winch Jarvis among seamen "Passenger ships as auxiliary cruisers — a short and owners of sailing vessels; among seamen history of a ship category," and by Ursula because it made their work less dangerous and Feldkamp who reports on the last voyage of the among owners because it saved them on crews. Kaiser Wilhelm der Grosse by her Master, Cap• His inventions never really caught on in Britain tain Meyer. Both stress the unsuitability of pas- Book Reviews 65 senger liners as auxiliary cruisers, an experience range extends from early modern times to the late shared by the Royal Navy in World Wars I and II. 1970s. What follows is a brief account of those An illuminative article by Ekhardt Berken- articles which are of more than just local interest. hagen demonstrates that the history of art has not The volume opens with a description by been forgotten in this volume. Supported by Astrid Olhagen of an interesting replica, that of beautiful black and white and colour illustrations, the sailing well-boat Jehu, which was launched in he writes about Pieter van der Velde in the light spring 1996. Such craft, which normally mea• of Flemish marine painting of the sixteenth to sured a good forty feet overall, were used to eighteenth centuries. transport both live fish and passengers over the Detlev Elmers touches on the archeology of Aland Sea.