Showing titles in Maritime History & Piracy

On the night of 14/15 April 1912, a supposedly unsinkable ship, the largest and most luxurious vessel in the world at the time, collided with an iceberg and sank on her maiden voyage. Of the 2,208 people on board, only 712 were saved. The rest either drowned or froze to death. How could this 'unsinkable' vessel sink and why did so few of those aboard survive? The authors bring the tragedy to life, telling the story of the ship's design, construction, and maiden voyage.

Brought to you by Penguin. WINNER OF THE WOLFSON HISTORY PRIZE 2020 From the award-winning author of The Great Sea, a magnificent new global history of the oceans and of humankind's relationship with the sea For most of human history, the seas and oceans have been the main means of long-distance...

The Sunday Times bestseller ‘One of the most dramatic forgotten chapters of the war, as told in a new book by the incomparable Max Hastings’ DAILY MAIL In August 1942, beleaguered Malta was within weeks of surrender to the Axis, because its 300,000 people could no longer be fed. Churchill...

A Times and Waterstones Book of the Year 'A superb work of history' JAMES HOLLAND 'A thrilling account from a master of Second World War history' DAN SNOW A landmark history of the U-Boat war told through the experiences and recollections of the U-Boat crews themselves. Winston Churchill...

The Royal Navy to which Admiral Lord Nelson sacrificed his life depended on thousands of sailors and marines to man the great wind-powered wooden warships. Drawn from all over Britain and beyond, often unwillingly, these ordinary men made the navy invincible through skill, courage and sheer determination.

The mutiny on HMS Bounty, in the South Pacific on 28 April 1789, is one of history's truly great stories - a tale of human drama, intrigue and adventure of the highest order - and in the hands of Peter FitzSimons it comes to life as never before. Commissioned by the Royal Navy to collect...

Brought to you by Penguin. A NEW YORK TIMES TOP-TEN BOOK OF 2024 A BARACK OBAMA BOOK OF THE YEAR From New York Times bestselling author Hampton Sides, the epic account of the most momentous voyage of the Age of Exploration, culminating in Captain James Cook's death On July 12th, 1776, Captain...

Henry Avery of Devon pillaged a fortune from a Mughal ship off the coast of India and then vanished into thin air—and into legend. More ballads, plays, biographies and books were written about Avery’s adventures than any other pirate. His contemporaries crowned him "the pirate king" for pulling off the richest heist in pirate history and escaping with his head intact (unlike Blackbeard and his infamous Flying Gang). Avery was now the most wanted criminal on earth. To the authorities, Avery was the enemy of all mankind. To the people he was a hero.

Brought to you by Penguin. The remarkable true story of two amateur divers who discover a World War Two German U-Boat sunk 60 miles off the eastern coast of America In 1991, 60 miles off the coast of New Jersey, at the incredible depth of 230 feet underwater, two amateur divers, John Chatterton...

David L. Mearns has discovered some of the world's most fascinating and elusive shipwrecks. The Shipwreck Hunter chronicles his most intriguing finds. It describes the extraordinary techniques used, the detailed research, and mid-ocean stamina and courage required to find a wreck thousands of feet beneath the sea, plus the moving human stories that lie behind each of these oceanic tragedies. Combining the adventuring derring-do of Indiana Jones with the precision of a scientist, The Shipwreck Hunter opens an illuminating porthole into the shadowy depths of the ocean.

SUNDAY TIMES BESTSELLER BLACKWELL'S NON-FICTION BOOK OF THE MONTH The extraordinary story of how the Endurance, Sir Ernest Shackleton's ship, was found in the most hostile sea on Earth in 2022 On 21 November 1915, Sir Ernest Shackleton’s ship, Endurance, finally succumbed to the crushing ice...

In 1768 Captain James Cook and his crew set out on a small British naval vessel in search of a missing continent. 2020 marks the 250th anniversary of that voyage, and Cook's 'discovery' of Australia. Captain Cook's Epic Voyage reveals the hardships and adventure of this remarkable quest, and the euphoria of discovering new lands.

In a book that will recalibrate our view of this defining feature of our planet, physicist Helen Czerski dives deep to illuminate the murky depths of the ocean engine, examining the messengers, passengers and voyagers that live in it, travel over it, and survive because of it. From the ancient Polynesians who navigated the Pacific by reading the waves to permanent residents of the deep such as the Greenland shark that can live for hundreds of years, she explains the vast currents, invisible ocean walls and underwater waterfalls that all have their place in the ocean's complex system.

On January 25, 1917, HMS Laurentic struck two German mines off the coast of Ireland and sank. The ship was carrying 44 tons of gold bullion to the still-neutral United States via Canada in order to finance the war effort for Britain and its allies. Britain desperately needed that sunken treasure, but any salvage had to be secret, since the British government dared not alert the Germans to the presence of the gold. Lieutenant Commander Guybon Damant was the most qualified officer to head the risky mission.

In this grand and thrilling narrative, the acclaimed biographer of Magellan, Columbus, and Marco Polo brings alive the singular life and adventures of Sir Francis Drake, the pirate/explorer/admiral whose mastery of the seas during the reign of Queen Elizabeth I changed the course of history...

THE SUNDAY TIMES BESTSELLER & THE TIMES HISTORY BOOK OF 2021 'Astonishing and compelling' Bernard Cornwell ‘This superb book is like a classical symphony, perfectly composed and exquisitely performed’ THE TIMES Books of the Year Follow bioarchaeologist Cat Jarman – and the cutting-edge...

Bloomsbury presents Titanic on Trial by Nic Compton, read by Peter Altschuler. Capturing the disbelief, the chaos and the terror of the fateful night the Titanic sank 100 years ago, Titanic on Trial brings to life the tragedy through the voices of those who survived it. Stories about the sinking...

January 1972: the tiny outpost of British Honduras is threatened with imminent invasion by battle-hardened, US-trained Guatemalan paratroopers. Britain's response must be immediate and decisive. But there is only one deterrent the government can offer: HMS Ark Royal, once the navy's most powerful warship, now a white elephant on the verge of being scrapped. To save the small colony, she must launch a pair of Buccaneer fighter bombers on an unprecedented long-range mission. But first the old carrier must make a high-speed 1,500-mile dash across the Atlantic.

LONGLISTED FOR THE CUNDHILL HISTORY PRIZE 'An acerbic, compelling and always accessible account of how opium corrupted the world' TLS 'The writing is sublime, the research thorough, the eye for story superb' Sunday Telegraph 'A history of the opium poppy, which probes how the drug trade has...

Der unerschrockenste Spion zu Napoleons Zeiten. Zwei Romane in einem Sammelband. "Jagd nach Vergeltung" England, 1803. Thomas Grey, Kapitän der britischen Marine und Spion im Dienste seiner Majestät, hat sich nach einem schweren Schicksalsschlag zurückgezogen und möchte nach Amerika auswandern. Der kürzlich mit den Franzosen geschlossene Frieden verspricht eine gefahrlose Überfahrt. Plötzlich kommt es jedoch zu einem Feuergefecht mit einem französischen Schiff. Grey überlebt und landet in Portugal, wo er auf einen Anwerber des französischen Geheimdienstes trifft.