BOOK OF THE MONTH - CHRISTMAS
THE HISTORY OF SEAFARING –
Navigating the World’s Oceans
Donald S Johnson & Juha Nurminen, £40
Conway Maritime Press: 978-1-84486-0401
At the recent launch, held appropriately at the Royal Geographical Society, an Admiral in the Finnish Navy commented that this book was set to become the standard history text for future naval officers, and it’s not hard to see why.
Impressive in both size and quality, meticulously researched and lavishly illustrated with images sourced from the world’s museums and archives, the book spans the full history of navigation, from its dawn, millennia before Christ, to the electronic age of satnav.
It explores the many reasons for making voyages across unknown oceans: commerce and trade, prestige and power – and good old-fashioned curiosity to know what lies over the horizon. Advances in astronomy, direction-finding, shipbuilding and surveying through the ages tell the fascinating and absorbing history of navigation and exploration, opening with the basic questions and challenges of navigation. Part 2 unravels the development of science and seafaring from the ancient times to the Mediterranean era, which created a basis for longer sailings – covered in Part 3 - whilst the book ends with the advanced technology that made it possible to determine a ship's exact position at sea.
The text is interspersed with some wonderful images, derived from museums and archives around the world and sourced by the authors as they delved deeper into their subject matter, whilst Info Boxes on diverse topics assist the reader to understand the basic concepts discussed. Navigation is treated as both a skill and a science: the highly advanced navigational talents of the Phoenicians, the Vikings and the Polynesians of the Pacific were handed down through oral tradition, with only the chosen few being initiated in them, and these skills now largely lost. The science evolved both in Europe and the Muslim world, with the Ancient Greeks theorising on cartography and astronomy, which formed the basis for future generations of navigators.
The great European navigators have shaped the history of the world – culturally and economically – by stamping their own character on the peoples that they met with, and being irrevocably altered themselves in turn: this book charts that process chronologically and in so doing introduces some of the less usual suspects who undertook voyages of discovery through the centuries.