A History of the World in Twelve Shipwrecks
From renowned underwater archaeologist David Gibbins comes an exciting and rich narrative of human history told through the archaeological discoveries of twelve shipwrecks across time.
The Viking warship of King Cnut the Great. Henry VIII's the Mary Rose. Captain John Franklin's doomed HMS Terror. The SS Gairsoppa, destroyed by a Nazi U-boat in the Atlantic during World War II.
Since we first set sail on the open sea, ships and their wrecks have been an inevitable part of human history. Archaeologists have made spectacular discoveries excavating these sunken ships, their protective underwater cocoon keeping evidence of past civilizations preserved. Now, for the first time, world renowned maritime archeologist David Gibbins ties together the stories of some of the most significant shipwrecks in time to form a single overarching narrative of world history.
A History of the World in Twelve Shipwrecks is not just the story of those ships, the people who sailed on them, and the car
go and treasure they carried, but also the story of the spread of people, religion, and ideas around the world; it is a story of colonialism, migration, and the indominable human spirit that continues today. From the glittering Bronze Age, to the world of Caesar's Rome, through the era of the Vikings, to the exploration of the Arctic, Gibbins uses shipwrecks to tell all.
Drawing on decades of experience excavating shipwrecks around the world, Gibbins reveals the riches beneath the waves and shows us how the treasures found there can be a porthole to the past that tell a new story about the world and its underwater secrets.
Guest 21 days ago
As a huge fan of the Jack Howard adventures, which I knew were inspired by dives undertaken by David Gibbins, I was excited to get my hands on an early copy of A History of the World in Twelve Shipwrecks. A part of me was disappointed that there weren’t more first-person accounts of the dives, narrative play-by-play of discovering and exploring these sunken wrecks, but that’s entirely okay because what is there – the history – is absolutely fascinating.In some cases, the book explores history through long-forgotten treasures, the kind of discoveries that every adventurer dreams of. Yes, there are gold and jewels to be found, religious and cultural artifacts as well, but Gibbins explores what they mean, what they tell us about the past, as opposed to what they’re worth. Where the book gets really interesting is in the exploration of everyday artifacts, things like plates and bowls and construction equipment, using them to create a picture of what life was like hundreds of years ago.
Once I got past my initial disappointment over the emphasis on history as opposed to shipwrecks, I began to see the archaeological process involved, and that was what fascinated me most. It’s often painstaking work, accomplished in the harshest of conditions, requiring a wealth of preparation. It’s not like you can just sit on an old battlefield or in an old homestead and sift through layers of dirt at your leisure – you’re at the mercy of the depths, your air supply, the current, and the weather. Sometimes all you can do is catalog what you see, knowing that the next storm could bury it, leaving your eyes the authority on the matter.
A History of the World in Twelve Shipwrecks can be a dry, scholarly read, but as such it’s a remarkable one. This is a work of David Gibbins, archaeologist and historian, not David Gibbins, adventure author, so you do need to set your expectations. But, as I tell my wife every week when she asks if they found more wood on the Curse of Oak Island, I don’t watch for the treasure, I watch for the history, the little discoveries of pottery and nails, not the big ones, and that’s what this is all about.
Guest 21 days ago
Princess Fuzzypants here: This is a pretty cool book. Not only is the author an archeologist but he is a diver who has not only visited the wrecks but also discovered new and revealing things in them. Much information from the past was either discounted, proved or enhanced by these wrecks. The story is told in both the size and shape of the vessel and in the cargo that has been retrieved from them. History tells us a story. We just need to know how to read it and how to connect the dots. This book does a lot of dot connecting.One can admire the fortitude and courage of those who enter the depths to bring forth the light. It is treacherous in so many ways, not the least being the shifting of currents and rock. The book goes deeply into the minutiae of the finds and how they disprove or substantiate previous beliefs. It is a book that would be good reading for the student and the curious.
Four purrs and two paws up.
Guest 21 days ago
This was a great book that I'd highly recommend to anyone interested in a different way to view history. Shipwrecks are fascinating because they are such a perfect time capsule and David Gibbins does an excellent job of using each wreck to explore the world as represented by each ship: trade, economics, politics, exploration, food, and more. Many factoids would come up that had me thinking "what a great idea for a book" all on their own.Occasionally the chapters wandered a little bit- probably the danger of trying to tell the history of the world as it stood at any one point in time. I found the sections where Gibbins described his own experiences diving many of the wrecks quite interesting. The idea of knowing that there is still more to learn and discover in these wrecks and possible future ones is always exciting.
I recommend this book to history lovers, ship lovers, and people interested in new ways of looking at history to explore what life was like at different points in history.
I received an ARC of this book from NetGalley in exchange for an honest review
Write Review:
User Reviews: