In Conclusion: Four Other Good Books
William Thomson
TIDES AND THE OCEAN
Water’s Movement Around the World - From Waves to Whirlpools
New York, Black Dog & Leventhal Publishers, 2017
Here is a layman’s treatment of its topic amplified by unusually handsome graphic design. Thomson has traveled the world with his young family in search of the most notable displays of the movement of ocean water — tides, rapids, whirlpools, tsunamis, bores, waves, powerful currents — and describes them from first-hand experience. He reminds us that the impressive power of moving water can be dangerous, whether to observers or those who make their living from the sea.
Thomson concludes with a plea for attention to the health of our oceans, a recurring topic in 21st century news reporting.
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Katherine Grandjean
AMERICAN PASSAGE
The Communications Frontier in Early New England
Cambridge and London, Harvard University Press, 2015
Our author offers a new approach to understanding life in 17th century New England. New London's founder, John Winthrop Jr., and other prominent colonizers such as Roger Williams and John Winthrop Sr., were inveterate letter writers, and their writings have come down to us as a trove of information about early colonial life. The Winthrop Family Papers at the Massachusetts Historical Society are a particularly voluminous resource.
Letters carried news, advice, secrets, instructions and warnings, and were the glue that held the far-flung settlements together. But in the absence of anything resembling a postal service, how did these letters reach their addressees? Many were carried by English coastal traders, putting into bays and rivers, others were entrusted to Indian couriers who carried them along the forest trails. The letters often mention the scarcity of food, suggesting that it was hunger and the competition for corn that led to much of the conflict among the settlers and the Indians.
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Geoff Hunt
THE SEA PAINTER'S WORLD: The New Marine Art of Geoff Hunt
London, Conway Maritime Press, 2011
Geoff Hunt is one of Britain's foremost marine painters, artist of the covers of Patrick O'Brian's twenty Aubrey-Maturin Royal Navy novels and occasional guest at Mystic Seaport. This is a sequel to The Marine Art of Geoff Hunt (Conway, 2008; published in the U.S. by Mystic Seaport); both reproduce examples of Hunt's work alongside his commentary.
We were pleasantly surprised to find in The Sea Painter's World a painting worth the price of the book: "Captain Hardy's Ramillies after the 'Battle of Stonington', August 1814." The British squadron has stood into Long Island Sound after the bombardment under sunny skies still untouched by smoke rising from the village, shortly to resume its blockade of New London in the final weeks of the War of 1812.
The best known American practitioner of documentary marine art is John Stobart, both of whose large-format books are in our collection. American Maritime Paintings of John Stobart, was acquired by Maritime Society founder, the late Lucille Showalter, in memory of Frank L. McGuire, an attorney who facilitated the Society's acquisition of New London's U.S. Custom House.
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Howard Michael Madaus and Whitney Smith
THE AMERICAN FLAG
Two Centuries of Concord & Conflict
Santa Cruz, CA, VZ Publications, 2006
There is no more potent symbol of a nation than its flag. Not only do we pledge allegiance to the flag, naval or commercial ships fly it all over the world as an ensign of nationality. This book goes beyond the evolving design of the “star-spangled banner,” shown chronologically in dozens of examples, to reflections on what the flag has meant to succeeding generations of Americans. In this centennial year of our entrance into World War I, a quotation from President Woodrow Wilson in a Flag Day speech, June 14, 1917, offers a paradigm of the ideas the flag can express:
“…This flag which we honor and under which we serve is the emblem of our unity, our power, our thought and purpose as a nation. It has no other character than that which we give it from generation to generation. The choices are ours.”
--Brian Rogers, Online Exhibits Librarian
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To see what else is in our book collection, click here to view our catalog.
Brian Rogers, Online Exhibitions Curator
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