From a Watery Grave
Title | From a Watery Grave PDF eBook |
Author | James E. Bruseth |
Publisher | Texas A&M University Press |
Pages | 184 |
Release | 2005 |
Genre | Biography & Autobiography |
ISBN | 9781585443475 |
An account of the discovery and excavation of the French ship La Belle, shipwrecked in 1686 in Matagorda Bay, Texas.
The Catalogue of Shipwrecked Books
Title | The Catalogue of Shipwrecked Books PDF eBook |
Author | Edward Wilson-Lee |
Publisher | Scribner |
Pages | 416 |
Release | 2020-03-10 |
Genre | History |
ISBN | 1982111402 |
This impeccably researched and “adventure-packed” (The Washington Post) account of the obsessive quest by Christopher Columbus’s son to create the greatest library in the world is “the stuff of Hollywood blockbusters” (NPR) and offers a vivid picture of Europe on the verge of becoming modern. At the peak of the Age of Exploration, Hernando Colón sailed with his father Christopher Columbus on his final voyage to the New World, a journey that ended in disaster, bloody mutiny, and shipwreck. After Columbus’s death in 1506, eighteen-year-old Hernando sought to continue—and surpass—his father’s campaign to explore the boundaries of the known world by building a library that would collect everything ever printed: a vast holding organized by summaries and catalogues; really, the first ever database for the exploding diversity of written matter as the printing press proliferated across Europe. Hernando traveled extensively and obsessively amassed his collection based on the groundbreaking conviction that a library of universal knowledge should include “all books, in all languages and on all subjects,” even material often dismissed: ballads, erotica, news pamphlets, almanacs, popular images, romances, fables. The loss of part of his collection to another maritime disaster in 1522, set off the final scramble to complete this sublime project, a race against time to realize a vision of near-impossible perfection. “Magnificent…a thrill on almost every page” (The New York Times Book Review), The Catalogue of Shipwrecked Books is a window into sixteenth-century Europe’s information revolution, and a reflection of the passion and intrigues that lie beneath our own insatiable desires to bring order to the world today.
La Belle, the Ship That Changed History
Title | La Belle, the Ship That Changed History PDF eBook |
Author | Bullock Texas State History Museum |
Publisher | Texas A&M University Press |
Pages | 263 |
Release | 2014-11-01 |
Genre | History |
ISBN | 1623490847 |
After two decades of searching for La Salle’s lost ship La Belle, Texas Historical Commission (THC) divers in 1995 located a shipwreck containing historic artifacts of European origin in the silty bottom of Matagorda Bay, off the coast of Texas. The first cannon lifted from the waters bore late seventeenth-century French insignias. The ill-fated La Belle had been found. Under the direction of then-THC Archeology Division Director James Bruseth, the THC conducted a full excavation of the water-logged La Belle. The conservation was subsequently completed at Texas A&M University’s Conservation Research Laboratory, resulting in preservation of more than one million artifacts from the wreck. An official naval vessel granted to La Salle by the king of France in 1684, La Belle is still considered a sovereign naval vessel belonging to the French government under international maritime law. A formal agreement negotiated by the French Republic, the Musée national de la Marine, the US Department of State, and the THC allows the ship and artifacts to remain in Texas permanently and to be housed in an exhibit at the Bob Bullock Texas State History Museum in Austin, opening October 2014. This richly illustrated catalog will accompany the exhibit.
Shipwreck Or Shangri-La?
Title | Shipwreck Or Shangri-La? PDF eBook |
Author | Peter Lickfold |
Publisher | Sheridan House, Inc. |
Pages | 340 |
Release | 2001 |
Genre | Biography & Autobiography |
ISBN | 9781574091427 |
Shipwrecked on an atoll in the Indian Ocean, the author and his wife receive help from visiting sailors and adapt to life in primitive conditions. After emergency repairs, they leave on the 3000-mile voyage home. Illustrated with 25 color photos.
We Are All Shipwrecks
Title | We Are All Shipwrecks PDF eBook |
Author | Kelly Grey Carlisle |
Publisher | Sourcebooks, Inc. |
Pages | 315 |
Release | 2017-09-05 |
Genre | Biography & Autobiography |
ISBN | 1492645214 |
AS SEEN ON DR. OZ "Moving and complex, this is an exquisitely written tale of perseverance and unconditional love. A worthwhile addition to any collection."—Library Journal, STARRED Review A mother's murder. Her daughter's redemption. And the complicated past that belongs to them both. Kelly always knew her family was different. She knew that most children didn't live with their grandparents and that their grandparents didn't own porn stores. Her classmates didn't sleep on a boat in the L.A. harbor, and she knew their next-door neighbors probably weren't drug addicts and johns. She knew that most of her classmates knew more about their moms than their cause of death. What Kelly didn't know was if she would become part of the dysfunction that surrounded her. Would she end up selling adult videos and sinking into the depths of harbor life, or would she escape to live her own story somewhere else? As an adult, Kelly decides to discover how the place where she came from defined the person she ultimately became. To do this, she goes back to the beginning—to a mother she never knew, a thirty-year-old cold case, and two of Los Angeles's most notorious murderers. We Are All Shipwrecks is Kelly's story of redemption from tragedy, told with a tenderness toward her family that makes it as much about preserving the strings that anchor her as it is about breaking free.
The Shipwreck That Saved Jamestown
Title | The Shipwreck That Saved Jamestown PDF eBook |
Author | Lorri Glover |
Publisher | Henry Holt and Company |
Pages | 336 |
Release | 2008-08-05 |
Genre | History |
ISBN | 1429930969 |
A freshly researched account of the dramatic rescue of the Jamestown settlers The English had long dreamed of colonizing America, especially after Sir Francis Drake brought home Spanish treasure and dramatic tales from his raids in the Caribbean. Ambitions of finding gold and planting a New World colony seemed within reach when in 1606 Thomas Smythe extended overseas trade with the launch of the Virginia Company. But from the beginning the American enterprise was a disaster. Within two years warfare with Indians and dissent among the settlers threatened to destroy Smythe's Jamestown just as it had Raleigh's Roanoke a generation earlier. To rescue the doomed colonists and restore order, the company chose a new leader, Thomas Gates. Nine ships left Plymouth in the summer of 1609—the largest fleet England had ever assembled—and sailed into the teeth of a storm so violent that "it beat all light from Heaven." The inspiration for Shakespeare's The Tempest, the hurricane separated the flagship from the fleet, driving it onto reefs off the coast of Bermuda—a lucky shipwreck (all hands survived) which proved the turning point in the colony's fortune.
La Belle
Title | La Belle PDF eBook |
Author | James E. Bruseth |
Publisher | Texas A&M University Press |
Pages | 916 |
Release | 2017-03-03 |
Genre | Social Science |
ISBN | 1623493617 |
In 1995, Texas Historical Commission underwater archaeologists discovered the wreck of La Salle’s La Belle, remnant of an ill-fated French attempt to establish a colony at the mouth of the Mississippi River that landed instead along today’s Matagorda Bay in Texas. During 1996–1997, the Commission uncovered the ship’s remains under the direction of archaeologist James E. Bruseth and employing a team of archaeologists and volunteers. Amid the shallow waters of Matagorda Bay, a steel cofferdam was constructed around the site, creating one of the most complex nautical archaeological excavations ever attempted in North America and allowing the archaeologists to excavate the sunken wreck much as if it were located on dry land. The ship’s hold was discovered full of everything the would-be colonists would need to establish themselves in the New World; more than 1.8 million artifacts were recovered from the site. More than two decades in the making, due to the immensity of the find and the complexity of cataloging and conserving the artifacts, this book thoroughly documents one of the most significant North American archaeological discoveries of the twentieth century.