maritime writings or read alone as one's primary navigation through the world's oceans and waterways, this wo rk presents the reader with a multi-faceted approach ro a global maritime landscape. Social ropics, such as maritime communities and banking and credit; cultural ropics, such as marine artists and figureheads; and regional articles coving the Indian Ocean ro the Caribbean Sea represent traditional barriers removed by this work. Moreover, ropics range from medieval ro modern and Far Eastern tO North American, presenting a reference work incredibly comprehensive in scope, ye t maintaining an impressive level of cohesion throughout. With nearly 1,000 entries contained in almost 3,000 large-format pages, it also takes up a considerable piece of real estate on one's bookshelf. This set is a virtual (if not literal) anchor for anyone's maritime library. Armchair sailors and aspiring academics will enjoy delving into the broad entries and specific avenues of Oxford Universiry Press's latest encyclopedic offering; accomplished scholars will crack the binding often. It further solidifies the essential role of maritime hisrory in the interpretation and public presentation of world hisrory.
rory, ever foc using on the idea that a huge proportion of sailors were exceptionally literate. Books and writing were a significant part of sailo rs' daily culture. Blum un covers evidence that suggests many captai ns even rolerated men bringing a book with them aloft while on lookout. Sailor-authors were fully aware that their labors at sea involved a level of existential thought and cosmopolitan experience unique ro their profession, and, as exemplified most famously by Dana and Melville, "literary tars" were committed
CATHY AND RUSSELL GREEN
Alpena, Michigan
lhe View from the Masthead: Maritime Imagination and Antebellum American Sea Narratives by Hester Blum (Universiry of No rth Carolina Press, C hapel Hill, 2008, 283pp, illus, notes, biblio, index, ISB N: 9780-08078- 5855-4, $22.95pb) If yo u're reading these book reviews, chances are you've read yo ur Dana and a good helping of Melville, perhaps even a dash of the salty works by Cooper and Poe. You might even re member Ishmael's comments in "The Mast-head" chapter of MobyDick, about how for "a dreamy meditative m an" time aloft is "delightful"- yet if one gets roo lost in revelry, a slip could lead to physical or symbolic doom . In lhe View from the Masthead Professor Blum examines this, and similar scenes from classic American sea narratives, as well as researching a great number of lesser-known works, particularly those first-person accounts that preceded Dana and Ames: th e narratives by sailors held captive by Barbary pirates. Blum exam ines sea narratives in their hisrorical context, in terms of their authorship, reception, and publishing hisSEA HISTORY 124 , AUTUMN 2008
ro wrmng truthfully and accurately about their skills and way of life. Blum explains: "Neither crude, unthinking drones nor disembodied transcendental eyeballs, sailors propose a method for aligning reflection and literary production with labor practice." Just as Ishmael allows himself ro digress into philosophical musings, so Blum does in her study, divi ng deeper inro the greater meanings of this sailor-author perspective, which she terms "the sea eye." Make no mistake, this is a thorough work ofliterary scholarship, fillin g gaps left by Thomas Philbrick's James Fenimore Cooper and the Development ofAmerican Sea Fiction (1961) and picking up from works such as Philip Edwards's The Story of the Voyage: Sea-Narratives in Eighteenth-Century England (1994). Blum includes an extensive bibliography and exhaustive notes and illustrates the book well with primary documents. But just like Melville's Ishmael, she can get a few toes too close to the edge of losing her reader in metaphysics, especially when she delves into what she calls "mariti me ep istemology." Blum never lets you slip off the cross-trees, however. She constantly reminds yo u of what she's arguing
and summarizes where she's been and where she's going. For the dreamy, meditative reader of maritime narratives, The View from the Masthead is scholarly and superb, nay, delightful. RrCHARD KrNG
Mystic, Connecticut
Endless Sea by Amyr Klink, translated by Thomas H. Norton (S heridan H ouse, Dobbs Ferry, NY, 2008 , 272pp, illus, biblio, ISBN 9 18-1 -57409-259-2; $19.95pb) Endless Sea is a sailor's narrative that traces Amyr Klink's solo voyage circumnavigating Antarctica from 3 1 Ocrober 1998 to 19 March 1999 in his steel-hulled boat, Paratii. His remarkable voyage of some 18,000 miles takes place during summer in the southern hemisphere, but he still finds plenty of ice to contend with, as well as freezing temperatures, dense fogs, and snow-, ice-, and rainstorms. As he sai ls along through his sto ry, Klink comments on the history of Antarctic exploration, briefly recounting the exploits of Cook, Bellinghausen, Amundsen, Scott and others. Amundsen he deems the most intrepid of all-a solid explorer who, importantly, "achieved his dream ." Another valuable component of the book is the contribution of his wife's "land" log of the voyage. Last year, I visited the Antarctic Peninsula where this extraordinary sailor m ade stops at many of the same places; I wish I could have done so when the region was still so pristine. Reading his story inspires me to return to "the end of the wo rld" and to sail the "endless sea." R OBERT KAMM
N iagara-O n-the-Lake, Ontario
Encyclopedia of Civil Wflr Shipwrecks by W. C raig Gaines (Lo uisiana State University Press, Baton Rouge, 2008, 264pp, photos, illus, maps, biblio, index, ISBN 978-0-8071 3274-6; $35.95hc) . Craig Gaines's new monograph provides a brief overview into the accounts and histories of over 2,000 American Civil War shipwrecks. Drawing on a wide number of historic sources, Encyclopedia of Civil %r Shipwrecks documents various hull attributes, summarizes the historic background
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