The Ship

The Ship (1961) by Bjorn Landstrom – Allen & Unwin

Human beings have always had an extraordinary relationship with water.

We look at an ocean — vast, cold, deep and entirely capable of killing us — and think:

“Let’s build something out of wood and go across it.”

Bjorn Landstrom’s The Ship, published by Allen & Unwin in 1961, is a lavishly illustrated history of that long and occasionally questionable decision.

This is not simply a book about boats.

It is about the development of the ship across centuries of human ingenuity, from the earliest primitive craft and ancient sailing vessels through galleys, merchant ships, warships and the increasingly sophisticated vessels of later periods.

Landstrom was both an author and an accomplished illustrator, and that combination is what makes the book especially appealing. Instead of merely describing how ships changed, he shows them in careful, detailed illustrations that make the whole history of maritime development far easier to understand.

Which is useful, because ships became complicated.

Very complicated.

At first you have something resembling a hollowed-out tree.

Then somebody adds a paddle.

Then a sail.

Then several sails.

Then decks.

Then guns.

Then rigging involving enough rope to terrify anyone who has ever struggled to untangle an extension lead.

Before long, the vessel has acquired three masts, seventeen different sails, a crew of two hundred and terminology apparently designed to prevent ordinary land-based people from understanding anything.

Landstrom guides the reader through this evolution with clarity and visual flair, showing how changing materials, technologies, trade and warfare shaped ship design over the centuries.

Ships, after all, were not merely transport.

They carried armies, explorers, merchants, migrants, cargoes, ideas, diseases, empires and occasionally large quantities of spices belonging to somebody else.

They connected continents long before aircraft made oceans seem inconveniently wide rather than essentially impassable.

The book is especially good for anyone fascinated by the mechanics and appearance of older vessels. Hull shapes, sails, rigging, construction and design changes can all be examined in a way that ordinary narrative history often cannot provide.

There is something particularly satisfying about an illustrated maritime history from this period.

No computer-generated cutaways.

No interactive model.

No animation showing the ship rotating dramatically while orchestral music plays.

Just extremely good drawings and the radical expectation that readers might actually look at them carefully.

Published in 1961, The Ship is itself now a vintage piece of maritime publishing, belonging to an era when large illustrated reference books were built to be substantial objects rather than downloadable files.

It has the reassuring presence of a book intended to remain on a shelf for decades and occasionally be removed by someone who wants to know what a Phoenician galley looked like.

This copy is in Very Good condition, which is particularly pleasing for a large illustrated book now more than sixty years old.

It has survived several generations of ship enthusiasts, changing fashions in maritime history and the continuing human tendency to put drinks dangerously close to expensive books.

Ideal for maritime historians, model-ship builders, naval enthusiasts, artists, illustrators, collectors of vintage reference books or anyone who simply enjoys looking at beautifully drawn ships without having to learn port from starboard first.

Also useful for anybody who has ever wondered how humanity progressed from floating logs to enormous ocean-going vessels and somehow still ended up arguing about whose turn it is to steer.

Sold by Crappy Old Books, where all vessels are seaworthy until proven otherwise and the nearest thing we have to a dry dock is the packing table.

ISBN: None
Condition: Very Good

Keep browsing: See more Transport books Other books by Bjorn Landstrom