The Story of the American Merchant Marine

John Randolph SpearsProject Gutenberg · United StatesDec 2019

Rating 3.4
Word count
506K words
Chapters
51

Tags

English Originals World History Trade HistoryEconomic HistoryAmerican ShippingMaritime HistoryShipbuilding IndustryRise and FallOcean ExplorationDocumentary NarrativeSocial ObservationPort City

Summary

Project Gutenberg was the first provider of free electronic books, or eBooks. Michael Hart, founder of Project Gutenberg, invented eBooks in 1971 and his memory continues to inspire the creation of eBooks and related technologies today.The Story of the American Merchant Marine by John Randolph SpearsAuthor: Spears, John Randolph, 1850-1936,Language: English, Class: HE: Social sciences: Transportation and communications, Release Date: Sep 22, 2016

Editor's review

This book gives a systematic account of the development of the American merchant marine from the colonial period to the early twentieth century, a classic popular work at the intersection of transport history and maritime history. The author, Spears, was a journalist who long wrote on maritime subjects; his narrative prizes fact and clear sequence, linking shipbuilding, shipping trade, the rise and fall of ports, wartime requisition, and policy change into a coherent whole. Its value lies in helping readers understand how the merchant marine took part in American economic expansion and the building of sea power, and in highlighting the tension between commercial shipping and national strategy. The book carries the perspective and phrasing of its time, and its data on early navigation and trade should be checked against modern scholarship. It serves well as an introductory framework for maritime transport history, and as further reading for those interested in the age of sail, port cities, and trade routes. The English is plain, and the chapters stand largely on their own, so readers may pick topics at will.

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Reading tips

  1. Start with the table of contents and choose chapters by period or theme; there is no need to read strictly from beginning to end.
  2. Read alongside a timeline of American history to clarify how wars and policies affected shipping.
  3. Look up ship types and trade terms as they come up to build a basic grasp of the concepts.
  4. After each section, sum up its period's features in a few sentences to form your own outline.

About the publisher

Project Gutenberg United States · Founded in 1971

Project Gutenberg is a digital publishing project focused on public-domain ebooks. Its publishing direction centers on classic literary works whose copyright has expired, covering genres such as poetry, drama, fiction, and epic. Representative books include Lyrical Ballads by Wordsworth and Coleridge, Proust's Du côté de chez Swann, Shakespeare's Macbeth and The Complete Works of William Shakespeare, Homer's The Iliad, Dante's La Divina Comèdia: Purgatòri, Cervantes's The History of Don Quixote, Volume 2, and Grahame's The Wind in the Willows. Its author resources consist mainly of classic Western writers such as Wordsworth, Proust, Shakespeare, Homer, Dante, Cervantes, Grahame, and Tolstoy. Its publishing feature is the provision of freely accessible ebooks in EPUB and Kindle formats; it is not a traditional publisher, and publicly available information is limited.

Contents

  1. 1
  2. 2
  3. 3
  4. 4
  5. 5
  6. 6
  7. 7
  8. 8
  9. 9
  10. 10
  11. 11
  12. 12
  13. 13
  14. 14
  15. 15
  16. 16
  17. 17
  18. 18
  19. 19
  20. 20
  21. 21
  22. 22
  23. 23
  24. 24
  25. 25
  26. 26
  27. 27
  28. 28
  29. 29
  30. 30
  31. 31
  32. 32
  33. 33
  34. 34
  35. 35
  36. 36
  37. 37
  38. 38
  39. 39
  40. 40
  41. 41
  42. 42
  43. 43
  44. 44
  45. 45
  46. 46
  47. 47
  48. 48
  49. 49
  50. 50
  51. 51

FAQ

What period does this book cover? Judging from its title and the era in which the author wrote, this book recounts the historical development of the American merchant marine. It was written in the early twentieth century and mainly covers the earlier stages; it does not address contemporary container shipping and global supply chains. Readers interested in modern logistics will need to look elsewhere.
Can someone without a maritime background understand it? Yes. This is a popular history intended for general readers, with a narrative built around facts and broad developments rather than dense technical terminology. A little lookup of ship types, tonnage, and trade terms is enough; it works well as an introductory framework for maritime history.
Are the views and data in the book still reliable? As an early popular work, its basic factual framework still has reference value, but some data, wording, and judgments reflect the limitations of its time. For specific statistics and scholarly controversies, it is best to read it alongside modern research rather than treating its conclusions as final.

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About the author

John Randolph Spears Author · American · 1850–1936

John Randolph Spears (1850–1936) was an American writer on maritime and naval history. He devoted himself to popular history for general readers, weaving details of seaborne trade, ships, and life at sea into readable narratives. Two of his works are held in this collection: The Story of the American Merchant Marine and The Gold Diggings of Cape Horn: A Study of Life in Tierra del Fuego and. The former traces the development of the American merchant fleet, while the latter turns to the Cape Horn region and examines life in Tierra del Fuego. He also wrote popular historical works such as a history of the American navy. Because public information is limited, biographical details are hard to verify, but his subjects show a lasting interest in maritime history and the social life of remote regions; his books combine historical introduction with readability and remain accessible accounts of American maritime and naval history.