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opening up this new route to India. The bibliography is mainly limited to general histories in English. Watkins is aiming for the lay reader rather than the scholar and tends to gloss over some complex issues . He unjustifiably discounts Herodotus's report of the Phoenician circumnavigation of Africa and is not quite clear on why King Manuel gave Vasco da Gama, a relative unknown in 1497, such an important assignment, and to the degree the great explorer depended on his older brother Paulo who accompanied him on the voyage and died just before returning to Lisbon. The two pages the author devotes to discussing the unsettled problems with primary sources and the scholarly controversy about the roles of the men of the previous generationHenry the Navigator, Bartolomeu Dias, and King John II-should have been extended to a dozen. Ir would be churlish to end on a negative note. Watkins, a fine writer, has produced an eminently readable, good book. The early chapters provide a readable survey of the age of exploration, naval technology in the fifteenth century and Portuguese h istory. Once Vasco da Gama sails from Portugal seeking spices, Prester John (the legendary Christian king of some mythical eastern realm), and India, halfWay through the book, it is hard to put it down. ANTHONY
J. PAPALAS
Greenville, North Carolina
Engi.neer in Gray: Memoirs of ChiefEngi.neer James H. Tomb, CSN edited by R. Thomas Campbell (McFarland & Company, Inc., Jefferson, NC, 2005 , 214pp, photos, illus, maps, notes, appen, biblio, index, ISBN 0-7864-1991-1; $45hc) James Hamilton Tomb's memoir is short, but it is also one of the most important Confederate naval memoirs to come out of the Civil War. Serving as an engineer, Tomb devoted almost twelve years to naval service, beginning as a Third Assistant E n gineer in the Confederate States Navy. During the American Civil War Tomb fought in both the eastern and western theaters on gunboats, ironclads, and torpedo boars. He began his career as an engineer on CSS Jackson and later
SEA HISTORY 112, AUTUMN 2005