Author: Brian Vale
Publisher: Taylor & Francis
ISBN: 1351730835
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 436
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Book Description
Brian Vale is a naval historian with degrees from Keele and King’s College London. A life-long member of the Society for Nautical Research and the Navy Records Society, he has long specialised in Anglo-South American maritime history. His books include Independence or Death! British sailors and Brazilian Independence, A Frigate of King George, The Audacious Admiral Cochrane and Cochrane in the Pacific: Fortune and Freedom in Spanish America.
Author: Steven Gray
Publisher: Springer
ISBN: 1137576421
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 297
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Book Description
This book examines how the expansion of a steam-powered Royal Navy from the second half of the nineteenth century had wider ramifications across the British Empire. In particular, it considers how steam propulsion made vessels utterly dependent on a particular resource – coal – and its distribution around the world. In doing so, it shows that the ‘coal question’ was central to imperial defence and the protection of trade, requiring the creation of infrastructures that spanned the globe. This infrastructure required careful management, and the processes involved show the development of bureaucracy and the reliance on the ‘contractor state’ to ensure this was both robust and able to allow swift mobilisation in war. The requirement to stop regularly at foreign stations also brought men of the Royal navy into contact with local coal heavers, as well as indigenous populations and landscapes. These encounters and their dissemination are crucial to our understanding of imperial relationships and imaginations at the height of the imperial age.
Author: Peter A. Shulman
Publisher: JHU Press
ISBN: 1421417065
Category : Business & Economics
Languages : en
Pages : 333
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Book Description
Since the early twentieth century, Americans have associated oil with national security. From World War I to American involvement in the Middle East, this connection has seemed a self-evident truth. But, as Peter A. Shulman argues, Americans had to learn to think about the geopolitics of energy in terms of security, and they did so beginning in the nineteenth century: the age of coal. Coal and Empire insightfully weaves together pivotal moments in the history of science and technology by linking coal and steam to the realms of foreign relations, navy logistics, and American politics. Long before oil, coal allowed Americans to rethink the place of the United States in the world. Shulman explores how the development of coal-fired oceangoing steam power in the 1840s created new questions, opportunities, and problems for U.S. foreign relations and naval strategy. The search for coal, for example, helped take Commodore Matthew Perry to Japan in the 1850s. It facilitated Abraham Lincoln's pursuit of black colonization in 1860s Panama. After the Civil War, it led Americans to debate whether a need for coaling stations required the construction of a global empire. Until 1898, however, Americans preferred to answer the questions posed by coal with new technologies rather than new territories. Afterward, the establishment of America's string of island outposts created an entirely different demand for coal to secure the country's new colonial borders, a process that paved the way for how Americans incorporated oil into their strategic thought. By exploring how the security dimensions of energy were not intrinsically linked to a particular source of power but rather to political choices about America's role in the world, Shulman ultimately suggests that contemporary global struggles over energy will never disappear, even if oil is someday displaced by alternative sources of power. "Enlightening reading for anyone interested in the politics and economics of energy."—Choice "Exciting to read. It is the product of someone who is such a gifted writer."—New Books Network "Peter Shulman's excellent new book mines the pre-history of the relationship between ideas about energy extraction and the building of the United States as an imperial nation."—Explorations in Federal History "A major contribution to foreign policy history and an essential read for any scholar interested in the development of policy and technology during the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries."—H-Net Reviews "In his exhaustively researched book, Shulman convincingly argues for the centrality of coal to nineteenth-century American domestic and foreign policy. His fast-paced and wide-ranging work recounts a number of fascinating episodes central to nineteenth-century American history through the lens of energy needs."—Diplomatic History "[Shulman's] rich text provides a vital contribution to our understanding of how resource exploitation—and hence science and technological change—was woven into the history of economics, international affairs, and domestic politics."—Journal of American History "Coal and Empire offers an intellectual feast for both historians and modern energy scholars. Meticulously researched and expertly written, it attempts to show how an energy fuel, in this instance coal, became an integral part of United States national security in the nineteenth century."—Technology and Culture "A forceful book—well-written, eye-opening, and analytically sharp. Coal and Empire is essential reading for anyone interested in the deep roots of the modern fossil economy."—American Historical Review "Regardless of where you stand on the nineteenth-century US imperial question, the resources, technology, and politics behind expanding US interests have long needed the careful treatment Coal and Empire provides."—Historical Geography "The book is an important one, and the histories of more quotidian commodities need more attention more generally. By using coal as a lens Shulman shows its integral place across US history and the development of its global role into the twentieth century."—Mariner's Mirror "Innovative and important analyses of the specific role of engineers and technology in provoking changes in energy policies, and thus international relations. [B]y delivering a detailed and accurate historical reconstruction of energy in nineteenth-century America, the book provides an interesting comparative case to present narratives about oil and energy security in the contemporary United States."—AMBIX "While the book is an excellent stand-alone study of the American adoption of coal for naval, mercantile, and imperial gains, it also is a fascinating addition to the growing field of energy history. Readers searching for an in-depth examination of naval and government policy will find what they seek, but so too will those interested in broader American, environmental, and energy histories."—Canadian Journal of History
Author: William Gifford
Publisher:
ISBN:
Category : English literature
Languages : en
Pages : 580
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Author:
Publisher:
ISBN:
Category : Encyclopedias and dictionaries
Languages : en
Pages : 828
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Author: United States. Navy Department
Publisher:
ISBN:
Category :
Languages : en
Pages : 1080
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Author: Charles Henry Hall
Publisher:
ISBN:
Category : Naval art and science
Languages : en
Pages : 320
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Author: United States. Navy Department
Publisher:
ISBN:
Category : Naval art and science
Languages : en
Pages : 980
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Book Description
Author: Robert E. Mullins
Publisher: Springer
ISBN: 3319320378
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 344
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Book Description
This volume examines the transformation of British and US naval policy from 1870 to 1889, which resulted in the British Naval Defence Act (1889), the construction of the first modern US battleships, and began the naval arms race which culminated in World War One. In examining the development of strategic thinking in the Royal and US Navies, it overturns conventional wisdom regarding genesis of the Naval Defence Act and the US Navy’s about-face from a defensive to an offensive strategic orientation. It pays particular attention to activities of the key individuals in both countries’ navies, who were instrumental in transforming their respective services’ organizational culture. This study will be of interest not only to historians but to political scientists, sociologists, and others working in the fields of international relations, strategic studies, policy analysis, and military learning, adaptation and innovation. It is also essential reading for those interested in the naval arms race during this period.
Author: Royal United Service Institution (Great Britain). Library
Publisher:
ISBN:
Category : Military art and science
Languages : en
Pages : 856
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