The Mammoth Book of Life Before the Mast: Sailors' Eyewitness Stories from the Age of Fighting Ships (Mammoth Books) [Paperback]

Jon E. Lewis (Editor)

Book Description

Series: Mammoth Books | Publication Date: November 28, 2000

The stirring firsthand accounts of the real-life naval adventures behind the popular historical sagas of Patrick O'Brian and C. F. Forester. The twenty true-life adventures in this exhilarating volume capture the glory and the gore of the great age of naval warfare. They epitomize that era from the late eighteenth to the early nineteenth century -- the age of the French Revolutionary War, the Napoleonic Wars, and the War of 1812 -- when combat at sea was won not by the impersonal power of technology but by sheer human wit, courage, and endurance. Culled from the memoirs, diaries, and letters of celebrated officers as well as common sailors, the collection not only includes exciting accounts of such decisive naval engagements as Admiral Horatio Nelson's on the Battle of the Nile in 1798 or Midshipman Roberts' on the Battle of Trafalgar in 1805 but also offers revealing glimpses into the hardships suffered daily aboard a man-of-war: the scurvy, whippings, storms, piracy, press gangs, drudgery, boredom, and cannibalism. Here, too, are the salt spray and grapeshot and bravery, the strategic errors and the thrill of victory. While in fiction many books strive to chronicle or re-create the colorful and heroic Age of Sail, for heart-rending immediacy and poignant truth no words can match those of the English, French, and American men who were there and whose tales make history live on every page of this anthology.

Product Details

• Paperback: 512 pages
• Publisher: Carroll & Graf (November 28, 2000)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0786708115
• ISBN-13: 978-0786708116
• Product Dimensions: 7.6 x 5.1 x 1.5 inches
• Shipping Weight: 12.8 ounces
• Average Customer Review: 5.0 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (1 customer review)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #1,643,985 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

15 of 15 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Primary Sources are the Historian's Meat, March 20, 2001

By 

Leigh H. Kimmel (Indianapolis, IN United States) - See all my reviews
(REAL NAME)   

This review is from: The Mammoth Book of Life Before the Mast: Sailors' Eyewitness Stories from the Age of Fighting Ships (Mammoth Books) (Paperback)

Primary sources, that is materials written by people who actually participated in a historical event, are the meat of historical work, and often the hardest things to find. While secondary sources (materials written by people who were not personally present at an event, but may have read about it or spoken with people who were) can help us gain a basic understanding of an event, we cannot really begin to understand it until we have studied the accounts of those who were there.

Unfortunately, primary source materials are often the most difficult to find. Professional historians often spend thousands of dollars in travel expenses to visit archives and study fragile documents. However, students of history cannot afford that sort of travel expense, nor can the documents themselves survive such a level of daily use.

That is why anthologies such as these are received with such joy by history instructors serious about teaching their students how to learn from history, rather than simply how to pass tests. In this book one will find a large number of important texts written by people who lived through the events they are describing. Some are senior admirals and other important figures, but many are ordinary enlisted men who provide a perspective that often gets forgotten in the official histories one finds in textbooks.

Think of it as your own private mini-archive on the Age of Sail.