When North Korea attacked South Korea in 1950; American forces joined with the United Nations to repel the invaders. More than seven thousand soldiers and airmen were taken prisoner and the level of mental and physical suffering they endured was unprecedented in American history.
#825889 in Books Woodes Rogers 2004-01-01Original language:EnglishPDF # 1 8.50 x .55 x 5.51l; .81 #File Name: 158976238X264 pagesA Cruising Voyage Round the World The Adventures of an English Privateer
Review
2 of 2 people found the following review helpful. Kindle version: 0 starsBy J. DeSimoneThe scan is awful; it's jibberish. Shame on for even allowing something of this poor quality to be sold for its devices. DO NOT BUY.0 of 0 people found the following review helpful. Five StarsBy Kathryn DavisIn good shape for being printed in 1928. Reading it and then will display it.5 of 7 people found the following review helpful. a hard slogBy Earnest SludgeThis book is only one quarter narrative. Half is library-researched exposition and another quarter is memoranda; the remaining quarter is taken from Rogers' journal.The exposition is concerned with the commercial exploitation potential of the various lands he passed by and is very dry. He also deals a lot with navigation difficulties. In fact; there is a 30 page appendix that details navigation info for all the places he visited. This is unreadable and worthless and could easily have been omitted and the type size increased for the remainder of the book. The type size is small and difficult to read; by the way. The exposition is occasionally interesting and it's refreshing to read accounts of the world that aren't saturated with the arrogance that's the norm nowadays.Even the narrative is a struggle to read since it's very terse and loaded with logistical details about managing a small privateer squadron.The memoranda are really irritating; too. I presume they're here both as padding and as justification; to the ship's owners and to the general public; for the general lack of success of the voyage. He doesn't even bother to give an account of the plunder in the Spanish treasure ship. Bizarre!Given all this focus on commercial exploitation and parliamentary formality it's no surprise that Rogers was subsequently appointed a colonial governor or that he ruthlessly prosecuted all pirates that were apprehended in his jurisdiction.Rogers gets badly wounded in a fight to take a Spanish treasure ship. The narrative was engaging enough for me to be upset about it. Their fruitless efforts to take an even bigger treasure ship was likewise very empathically frustrating to me; so I have to give the narrative credit for involving me to that degree.I suppose I shouldn't gripe about the typos since Narrative Press has provided this fairly cheap (if bought used) and convenient edition. But it has to be said that this book has literally hundred of typos. Most of them are easy to figure out but some aren't. I have a PDF version of this and I used it a couple times to clear up confusion; but it just got to be too frequent and too much of a hassle after a while and I just kept plowing forward instead. Also; it was the archaic use of the long-s in the original that the typesetters were working with that lead to a big fraction of the typos.There are quite a few interesting little tidbits and anecdotes sprinkled along the way so this wasn't a completely arduous chore. The account of the rescue of Alexander Selkirk being one of the chief examples.At the end of the voyage; Rogers calls it a "long and fatiguing voyage". This book was mostly long and fatiguing; too.
