A History of the World in Twelve Shipwrecks

January 1, 2024
A popular novelist turns his hand to historical writing, focusing on what shipwrecks can tell us. There's something inherently romantic about shipwrecks: the mystery, the drama of disaster, the prospect of lost treasure. Gibbins, who's found acclaim as an author of historical fiction, has long been fascinated with them, and his expertise in both archaeology and diving provides a tone of solid authority to his latest book. The author has personally dived on more than half the wrecks discussed in the book; for the other cases, he draws on historical records and accounts. "Wrecks offer special access to history at all...levels," he writes. "Unlike many archaeological sites, a wreck represents a single event in which most of the objects were in use at that time and can often be closely dated. What might seem hazy in other evidence can be sharply defined, pointing the way to fresh insights." Gibbins covers a wide variety of cases, including wrecks dating from classical times; a ship torpedoed during World War II; a Viking longship; a ship of Arab origin that foundered in Indonesian waters in the ninth century; the Mary Rose, the flagship of the navy of Henry VIII; and an Arctic exploring vessel, the Terror (for more on that ship, read Paul Watson's Ice Ghost). Underwater excavation often produces valuable artifacts, but Gibbins is equally interested in the material that reveals the society of the time. He does an excellent job of placing each wreck within a broader context, as well as examining the human elements of the story. The result is a book that will appeal to readers with an interest in maritime history and who would enjoy a different, and enlightening, perspective. Gibbins combines historical knowledge with a sense of adventure, making this book a highly enjoyable package.

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February 1, 2024
Best-selling novelist Gibbins (Inquisition, 2018) returns to his passion for archeology in this examination of 12 sunken vessels ranging from a Bronze Age wreck off England's Dover coast to a WWII merchant ship sunk off the coast of Ireland. Each of these dozen shipwrecks in some way reflects the state of the world at the time the ships went down. The Bronze Age wreck's cargo shows that international trade flourished even in prehistoric times; copper cargo from the Uluburun shipwreck found off Turkey's shore gives similar evidence of thriving commerce in the eastern Mediterranean. A sunken vessel from the sixth century CE held marble columns clearly intended for a Byzantine church. The remains of Henry VIII's renowned flagship, Mary Rose, tells much about Tudor seamanship and England's nascent ability to colonize so much of the world. As Gibbins notes, none of this history would be available today save for the invention of scuba technology, allowing underwater archeology to flourish. Gibbins' remarkable research will grant both maritime and general historians a deeper perspective on how our world developed.

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February 12, 2024
Maritime archaeologist and novelist Gibbins (Atlantis) delivers an entertaining and knowledgeable survey of world history with a seafaring spin. Profiling 12 sunken vessels, dating from the second millennium BCE to WWII, each of which preserves a specific slice of time—a degree of precision that he explains is not typical of most archaeological sites—Gibbins uses each wreck as a window onto that ship’s wider historical context. The earliest shipwrecks shed light on ancient networking. For example, two swords recovered from Britain’s Bronze Age Dover boat reveal the extent of the era’s metal trade. The Plemmirio shipwreck off Sicily, dating to the height of the Roman Empire in the second century CE, provides insight on the personal lives of its sailors, which included a specialist surgeon who left behind several scalpel handles. Other chapters discuss how the Belitung Island wreck—a trading vessel of Arab origin found off the coast of Indonesia—exemplifies the spread of new inventions from China to the West in the 800s CE; and dig into Henry VIII’s flagship the Mary Rose, an artifact-rich (nearly 200,000 well-preserved items have been recovered) slice of life from the Tudor period. A well-informed and dynamic narrator, Gibbins glides breezily between stories of his scuba dives and quotes from medieval Chinese poetry. History buffs will find this smooth sailing.

June 14, 2024

Maritime archaeologist and adventure/historical-fiction novelist Gibbins (author of the "Jack Howard" and "Total War" series) turns to nonfiction with a lively consideration of exploration, ranging from the Bronze Age through the Viking era, to doomed quests to the Arctic. Gibbins details the treasure and lives lost and the meaning of the voyages writ large. Prepub Alert.

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