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A Night to Remember
by Walter Lord
The classic minute-by-minute account of the sinking of the Titanic , in a 50th anniversary edition with a new introduction by Nathaniel Philbrick First published in 1955, A Night to Remember remains a completely riveting account of the Titanic 's fatal collision and the behavior of the passengers and crew, both noble and ignominious. Some sacrificed their lives, while others fought like animals for their... (more)
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Aubrey-Maturin: Book 1
Master and Commander
by Patrick O'Brian
The beginning to the sweeping Aubrey/Maturin series and inspiration for the major new motion picture starring Russell Crowe. "The best sea story I have ever read."—Sir Francis Chichester This, the first in the splendid series of Jack Aubrey novels, establishes the friendship between Captain Aubrey, R.N., and Stephen Maturin, ship's surgeon and intelligence agent, against a thrilling backdrop of the Napoleonic... (more)
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To Rule the Waves
How the British Navy Shaped the Modern World
by Arthur Herman
To Rule the Waves tells the extraordinary story of how the British Royal Navy allowed one nation to rise to a level of power unprecedented in history. From the navy's beginnings under Henry VIII to the age of computer warfare and special ops, historian Arthur Herman tells the spellbinding tale of great battles at sea, heroic sailors, violent conflict, and personal tragedy -- of the way one mighty institution... (more)
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Britain, Germany, and the Great War: Book 1
Dreadnought
Britain, Germany and the Coming of the Great War
by Robert K. Massie
Robert K. Massie has written a richly textured and gripping chronicle of the personal and national rivalries that led to the twentieth century's first great arms race. Massie brings to vivid life, such historical figures as the single-minded Admiral von Tirpitz, the young, ambitious, Winston Churchill, the ruthless, sycophantic Chancellor Bernhard von Bulow, and many others. Their story, and the story of the era,... (more)
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The Price of Admiralty
The Evolution of Naval Warfare
by John Keegan
Keegan illuminates the history of naval combat by expertly dissecting four landmark sea battles, each featuring a different type of warship: The Battle of Trafalgar, the Battle of Jutland in World War I, the Battle of Midway in World War II, and the long and arduous Battle of the Atlantic.
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Under the Black Flag
The Romance and the Reality of Life Among the Pirates
by David Cordingly
For this rousing, revisionist history, the former head of exhibitions at England's National Maritime Museum has combed original documents and records to produce a most authoritative and definitive account of piracy's "Golden Age." As he explodes many accepted myths (i.e. "walking the plank" is pure fiction), Cordingly replaces them with a truth that is more complex and often bloodier. 16 pp. of photos. Maps. ... (more)
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Longitude
The True Story of a Lone Genius Who Solved the Greatest Scientific Problem of His Time
by Dava Sobel
Anyone alive in the eighteeth century would have known that "the logitude problem" was the thorniest scientific dilemma of the day--and had been for centuries. Lacking the ability to measure their longitude, sailors throughout the great ages of exploration had been literally lost at sea as soon as they lost sight of land. Thousands of lives, and the increasing fortunes of nations, hung on a resolution. The... (more)
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Six Frigates
The Epic History of the Founding of the U.S. Navy
by Ian W. Toll
How "a handful of bastards and outlaws fighting under a piece of striped bunting" humbled the omnipotent British Navy. Before the ink was dry on the U.S. Constitution, the establishment of a permanent military had become the most divisive issue facing the new government. Would a standing army be the thin end of dictatorship? Would a navy protect American commerce against the Mediterranean pirates, or drain the... (more)
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Nelson: Book 1
Nelson
A Dream of Glory, 1758-1797
by John Sugden
The most authoritative and captivating account ever written of legendary British naval commander Horatio Nelson's early career and rise to prominence Among military and naval commanders, Horatio Nelson stands as one of the finest examples of inspirational leadership. The historian John Sugden charts the period of Nelson's career neglected by earlier writers-from childhood to his breathtaking victory against the... (more)
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Pivotal Moments in American History
The Battle of Midway
by Craig L. Symonds
There are few moments in American history in which the course of events tipped so suddenly and so dramatically as the Battle of Midway. At dawn of June 4, 1942, a rampaging Japanese navy ruled the Pacific. By sunset, their vaunted carrier force (the Kido Butai) had sunk and their dominance in the Pacific was finished. Craig L. Symonds is the first historian to argue that the victory at Midway was not simply a... (more)
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SEAL Target Geronimo
The Inside Story of the Mission to Kill Osama bin Laden
by Chuck Pfarrer
On May 2, 2011, at 1:03 a.m. in Pakistan, a satellite uplink was sent from the town of Abbottabad crackling into the situation room of the White House in Washington, D.C.: “Geronimo, Echo, KIA.” These words, spoken by a Navy SEAL, put paid to Osama bin Laden’s three-decade-long career of terror. For ten years following 9/11, Bin Laden was the object of the most intense manhunt in modern history. This reclusive... (more)
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Sea Queens
Women Pirates Around the World
by Jane Yolen, Christine Joy Pratt
Throughout the ages, women from all classes and walks of life turned to pirating out of necessity, desperation, or greed. Acclaimed author Jane Yolen examines the contradictions of these bold women's lives and times. Meet Artemisia, the admiral-queen of Persia in 500 BC; Grania O'Malley, the Irish "pirate queen" who challenged Queen Elizabeth I's British ships; Madame Ching, who sailed the South China Sea in the... (more)
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Nelson's Trafalgar
The Battle That Changed the World
by Roy Adkins
An explosive chronicle of history’s greatest sea battle In the tradition of Antony Beevor’s Stalingrad, Nelson’s Trafalgar presents the definitive blow-by-blow account of the world’s most famous naval battle, when the British Royal Navy under Lord Horatio Nelson dealt a decisive blow to the forces of Napoleon. The Battle of Trafalgar comes boldly to life in this definitive work that re-creates those... (more)
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Blue Latitudes
Boldly Going Where Captain Cook has Gone Before
by Tony Horwitz
Two centuries after James Cook's epic voyages of discovery, Tony Horwitz takes readers on a wild ride across hemispheres and centuries to recapture the Captain's adventures and explore his embattled legacy in today's Pacific. Horwitz, a Pulitzer Prize-winner and author of Confederates in the Attic, works as a sailor aboard a replica of Cook's ship, meets island kings and beauty queens, and carouses the South Seas... (more)
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The Rising Sun
The Decline and Fall of the Japanese Empire, 1936-1945
by John Toland
This Pulitzer Prize–winning history of World War II chronicles the dramatic rise and fall of the Japanese empire, from the invasion of Manchuria and China to the atomic bombing of Hiroshima and Nagasaki. Told from the Japanese perspective, The Rising Sun is, in the author’s words, “a factual saga of people caught up in the flood of the most overwhelming war of mankind, told as it happened—muddled, ennobling,... (more)
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Sharpe's Adventures: Book 4
Sharpe's Trafalgar
Richard Sharpe & the Battle of Trafalgar, October 21, 1805
by Bernard Cornwell
The year is 1805, and the Calliope , with Richard Sharpe aboard, is captured by a formidable French warship, the Revenant , which has been terrorizing British nautical traffic in the Indian Ocean. The French warship races toward the safety of its own fleet, carrying a stolen treaty that could provoke India into a new war against the British -- and render for naught all that Sharpe has bravely fought for till... (more)
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John Paul Jones
Sailor, Hero, Father of the American Navy
by Evan Thomas
John Paul Jones, at sea and in the heat of the battle, was the great American hero of the Age of Sail. He was to history what Patrick O'Brian's Jack Aubrey and C. S. Forester's Horatio Hornblower are to fiction. Ruthless, indomitable, clever; he vowed to sail, as he put it, "in harm's way." Evan Thomas's minute-by-minute re-creation of the bloodbath between Jones's Bonhomme Richard and the British man-of-war ... (more)
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The Terrible Hours
The Man Behind the Greatest Submarine Rescue in History
by Peter Maas
On the eve of World War II, the Squalus, America's newest submarine, plunged to the bottom of the North Atlantic. Miraculously, thirty-three crew members still survived. While their loved ones waited in unbearable tension on shore, their ultimate fate would depend upon one man, U.S. Navy officer Charles "Swede" Momsen -- an extraordinary combination of visionary, scientist, and man of action. In this... (more)
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Annapolis
by William Martin
The gripping and passionate story of a brave, stubborn, ambitious, and idealistic American clan, the Staffords, who have been sworn to protect American shores throughout its history and in case of future emergencies, follows the family from the Civil War, through Vietnam, and beyond. Reprint. NYT. PW. K. "
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Rounding The Horn: Being the Story of Williwaws and Windjammers, Drake, Darwin, Murdered Missionaries and Naked Natives - A Deck's Eye View of Cape Horn
by Dallas Murphy
Fifty-five degrees 59 minutes South by 67 degrees 16 minutes West: Cape Horn-a buttressed pyramid of crumbly rock situated at the very bottom of South America-is a place of forlorn and foreboding beauty that has captured the dark imaginations of explorers and writers from Francis Drake to Joseph Conrad. For centuries, the small stretch of water between Cape Horn and the Antarctic Peninsula was the only gateway... (more)

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