A historian and sailor describes how 16th-century voyages from England to the Americas were made When a ship set out for the Americas in the 16th century; the crew faced a long voyage and a host of difficulties along the way. Ship-building; navigation; and provisioning were all crucial to the vessel actually arriving in the New World; which was by no means guaranteed. In order to reach her destination; both skill and luck played vital roles. By examining a host of original documents; including especially logs of voyages; historian and sailor James Seay Dean has been able to construct a detailed nautical history of this early period of English exploration of the Americas; when attention was still focused primarily on the Tropics. He looks at how the ships were built; how they were navigated in an age before even sextants; let alone GPS; and what life was like for the crews aboard them. This is an important book for anyone with an interest in the history of colonialism; as well as of ships and the sea.
#4956383 in Books Sutton Publishing 1999-09-01Original language:EnglishPDF # 1 9.90 x .88 x 7.08l; #File Name: 0750920300256 pages
Review
1 of 1 people found the following review helpful. As Described in TitleBy heretic666The title describes the book succinctly and ends with the death of the king and the Terror as an event is only mentioned as a footnote and not the inevitable outcome of an uprising for equality; liberty and fraternity as the stated objectives.Sometimes day by day; sometimes minute by minute; the book is an accumulation of the most reliable accounts and where discrepancies arrive both or all versions are given to help preclude the apocryphal or fictional.One cant help wondering if small changes in circumstances at the right time might have produced different outcomes as there were so many players in this tragedy and some minor events were blown out of prportion for nefarious purposes and personal agendas.Not exactly a rattling good read but a thought provoking summary that dispels a few myths and forces speculation about what might have been.
