Read The Sea and Civilization: A Maritime History of the World Online

Authors: Lincoln Paine

Tags: #History, #Military, #Naval, #Oceania, #Transportation, #Ships & Shipbuilding

The Sea and Civilization: A Maritime History of the World

BOOK: The Sea and Civilization: A Maritime History of the World
6.55Mb size Format: txt, pdf, ePub
ads

THIS IS A BORZOI BOOK
PUBLISHED BY ALFRED A. KNOPF

Copyright © 2013 by Lincoln Paine

All rights reserved. Published in the United States by Alfred A. Knopf, a division of Random House LLC, New York, and in Canada by Random House of Canada Limited, Toronto, Penguin Random House Companies.

www.aaknopf.com

Knopf, Borzoi Books, and the colophon are registered trademarks of Random House LLC

Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data
Paine, Lincoln P.
The sea and civilization : a maritime history of the world / by Lincoln Paine. —First Edition.
pages   cm
ISBN 978-1-4000-4409-2 (hardback)
1. Ocean and civilization.  2. Naval history.  3. Naval art and science—History.  4. Navigation—History.  5. Sea-power—History.  I. Title.
CB465.P34 2013
910.4′5—dc23
2013015436

eBook ISBN: 978-0-307-96225-6

Jacket image:
Official Visit of Franz Joseph and Empress Elisabeth of Austria, Arriving at Miramare Castle in Trieste,
De Agostini
Picture Library / G. Dagli Orti / The Bridgeman Art Library
Cover design by Jason Booher

v3.1

FOR ALLISON

Now one day, as I was sitting with Abu ’Ali bin Hazim and looking at the sea—we were on the shore at ’Adan—said he to me: “What is it with which you seem to me to be so preoccupied?”

Said I: “God support the Shaykh! My mind is perplexed concerning the sea, so great is the number of conflicting accounts of it. The Shaykh now is the most knowledgeable of men about it, because he is chief of the merchants, and his ships are continually traveling to the furthermost parts of it. Should he be willing to give me a description of it I can rely on, and relieve me of doubt about it, perhaps he will do so.”

Said he: “You have encountered an expert in the matter!” He smoothed the sand with the palm of his hand and drew a figure of the sea on it.

—al-Muqaddasi,
The Best Divisions for Knowledge of the World
(375
AH
/ 985
CE
)

Contents

         
Cover

         
Title Page

         
Copyright

         
Dedication

         
Epigraph

       
List of Illustrations

       
Maps

       
Acknowledgments

       
A Note on Measures

       
Introduction

       
Notes

       
Bibliography

       
Index

        
A Note About the Author

        
Other Books by This Author

        
Illustrations

List of Illustrations

Bronze Age rock carving from Kvalsund, Norway

Boats of the Friendly Islands
, by John Webber

Umiak on whale patrol

The oldest image of a sail, on the Naqada/Gerzean vase

The return of Hatshepsut’s ships from Punt

A Mesopotamian cylinder seal and the sealing it makes

The Magan Boat replica from Oman

Early Minoan terra-cotta “pan” from the island of Syros

Shipping cedar logs on the Phoenician coast

The flight of Luli from Tyre to Cyprus

A Greek galley overtaking an Etruscan sailing ship

Roman ships carrying Emperor Trajan across the Danube

A ship arriving at Ostia

The principal oceanic wind systems

Satavahana Dynasty coin decorated with a two-masted ship

Louchuan
from the
Collection of the Most Important Military Techniques

Bronze ship model from Kampong Dobo, Flores

Trackers towing a riverboat on the Yangzi

Ship from the Dunhuang cave complex in central China

“The Bay and Strait of Gibraltar,” by Carel Allard

The Gokstad ship

A stone carving of a boat from the Pala kingdom in northeast India

A bas-relief from the temple at Borobudur in central Java

The
Samudra Raksa
, a ship based on bas-reliefs at Borobudur

A sailing ship from the Bayon temple at Angkor Thom, Cambodia

A paddled vessel from the Bayon temple at Angkor Thom, Cambodia

Seal of the city of Lübeck

Sailors sleeping on a cargo of mangrove logs on the
Triumph of Righteousness

Chinese stamp commemorating the six hundredth anniversary of the Zheng He expeditions

Sebastiano del Piombo’s portrait of a man thought to be Christopher Columbus

Pierre Chassereau’s “A New and Correct Plan of the Harbour of Carthagena [Colombia] in America”

Seal die of the English Muscovy Company

Map of the China Seas from Linschoten’s
Itinerario

Jansz. van Miervelt’s Portrait of Hugo Grotius

Peter Pett and the
Sovereign of the Seas, by Sir Peter Lely

Description of the slave ship
Brooks

Thomas Daniell’s
Calcutta from the River Hoogly

Benjamin Franklin’s Gulf Stream map

Plimsoll Mark, or Load Line

The
Tusitala
and
Berengaria
outward bound from New York

Nineteenth-century Dutch or German scrimshaw

Shoveling coal in the troopship USS
Troy

The submarine tender USS
Bushnell
and submarine
AL-3

The battleship USS
Arizona
passing through the Panama Canal

LSTs at Leyte Island, the Philippines

Off-loading cargo at New Orleans

Insert

  
1. An Egyptian faience plate decorated with a papyrus raft

  
2. Minoan ship mural from the island of Thera (Santorini)

  
3. A pirate’s bireme bearing down on a sailing merchantman

  
4. The port of Carthage

  
5. Merchant ship from Ajanta, India

  
6. Byzantine mosaic of fisherman from Ravenna

  
7. Byzantine
dromon
fitted with Greek fire

  
8. The Broighter boat model from northern Ireland

  
9. Shipbuilding scene from the Bayeux Tapestry

10. A ship from al-Wasiti’s manuscript of al-Hariri’s
Maqamat

11. A passenger-carrying junk at Kaifeng, China

12. A great galley from the shipbuilding treatise by Michael of Rhodes

13.
The Doge of Venice Departing for the Lido in the
Bucintoro by Antonio Canaletto

14. Warriors repelling the Yuan invasion of Japan

15. An illustration from a 1341 manuscript of the
Shahnamah

16. A ship taking soundings, from the
Ordonances of Armoury

17. Jorge Aguiar’s portolan chart of the Mediterranean

18. Noah’s ark by the Mughal miniaturist Miskin

19. Johan Bruun’s
Kronborg Castle, View from the Øresund

20. James Gillray’s “John Bull Taking a Luncheon,” after the battle of Aboukir

21.
Giant Demon Attacks a Ship,
from the
Sripal Ras

22. Jean Dupas’s art deco masterpiece,
History of Navigation

23. Stephen Bone’s
On Board an S-Class Submarine: Up the Conning Tower

24. The container port of Singapore

25. A huge catch aboard a trawler in the Gulf of Alaska

26. Underway replenishment in the Arabian Sea

Maps

Oceania

Click
here
to see a larger image.

Pre-Columbian South America and the Caribbean

Click
here
to see a larger image.

BOOK: The Sea and Civilization: A Maritime History of the World
6.55Mb size Format: txt, pdf, ePub
ads

Other books

Somewhere! (Hunaak!) by Abbas, Ibraheem, Bahjatt, Yasser
Talking It Over by Julian Barnes
A Texas Family Reunion by Judy Christenberry
Borderline by Liza Marklund
Avenger of Antares by Alan Burt Akers