Provides details of an exciting episode in nineteenth-century maritime history
Extensively illustrated with maps, diagrams, and prints
In Atlantic Kingdom, John A. Butler pays tribute to the Americans who challenged Cunard, the English shipping company that held a monopoly on North Atlantic trade routes in the nineteenth century. In an era when civilization first grappled with large-scale technology and creative industries promised a new standard of living, competition for control over maritime trade was fierce. Robert Fulton, Cornelius Vanderbilt, P. T. Barnum, Edward Knight Collins, Enoch Train, and Samuel Samuels battled like mythical gods for control of their domains. These titans of the Atlantic left behind them a wreckage of human lives, lost ships, and squandered fortunes in their failed bids for supremacy of the seas. Although these men did not overthrow Britannia’s rule of the waves, their monumental effort extended the limits of technology, expanded global trade exponentially, and carried the Industrial Revolution to its fulfillment.
