Winner of the Brewington Book Prize for Maritime History The story of the epic contest between shipping magnates Samuel Cunard and Edward Collins for mid-19th century control of the Atlantic. Between 1815 and the American Civil War, the greatest invention of the Industrial Revolution delivered a sea change in oceanic transportation. Steam travel transformed the Atlantic into a pulsating highway, dominated by ports in Liverpool and New York, as steamships ferried people, supplies, money, and information with astounding speed and regularity. American raw materials flowed eastward, while goods, capital, people, and technology crossed westward. The Anglo-American “partnership” fueled development worldwide; it also gave rise to a particularly intense competition. Steam Titans tells the story of a transatlantic fight to wrest control of the globe's most lucrative trade route. Two men--Samuel Cunard and Edward Knight Collins--and two nations wielded the tools of technology, finance, and politics to compete for control of a commercial lifeline that spanned the North Atlantic. The world watched carefully to see which would win. Each competitor sent to sea the fastest, biggest, and most elegant ships in the world, hoping to earn the distinction of being known as “the only way to cross.” Historian William M. Fowler brings to life the spectacle of this generation-long struggle for supremacy, during which New York rose to take her place among the greatest ports and cities of the world, and recounts the tale of a competition that was the opening act in the drama of economic globalization, still unfolding today.

How the introduction of steam, iron, and steel required new rules and new ways of thinking for the design and building of ships. In the 1800s, shipbuilding moved from sail and wood to steam, iron, and steel. The competitive pressure to achieve more predictable ocean transportation drove the industrialization of shipbuilding, as shipowners demanded ships that enabled tighter scheduling, improved performance, and safe delivery of cargoes. In Bridging the Seas, naval historian Larrie Ferreiro describes this transformation of shipbuilding, portraying the rise of a professionalized naval architecture as an integral part of the Industrial Age. Picking up where his earlier book, Ships and Science, left off, Ferreiro explains that the introduction of steam, iron, and steel required new rules and new ways of thinking for designing and building ships. The characteristics of performance had to be first measured, then theorized. Ship theory led to the development of quantifiable standards that would ensure the safety and quality required by industry and governments, and this in turn led to the professionalization of naval architecture as an engineering discipline. Ferreiro describes, among other things, the technologies that allowed greater predictability in ship performance; theoretical developments in naval architecture regarding motion, speed and power, propellers, maneuvering, and structural design; the integration of theory into ship design and construction; and the emergence of a laboratory infrastructure for research.

A sweeping history of the legendary private investment firm Brown Brothers Harriman, exploring its central role in the story of American wealth and its rise to global power Conspiracy theories have always swirled around Brown Brothers Harriman, and not without reason. Throughout the nineteenth century, when America was convulsed by a devastating financial panic essentially every twenty years, Brown Brothers quietly went from strength to strength, propping up the U.S. financial system at crucial moments and catalyzing successive booms, from the cotton trade and the steamship to the railroad, while largely managing to avoid the unwelcome attention that plagued some of its competitors. By the turn of the twentieth century, Brown Brothers was unquestionably at the heart of what was meant by an American Establishment. As America's reach extended beyond its shores, Brown Brothers worked hand in glove with the State Department, notably in Nicaragua in the early twentieth century, where the firm essentially took over the country's economy. To the Brown family, the virtue of their dealings was a given; their form of muscular Protestantism, forged on the playing fields of Groton and Yale, was the acme of civilization, and it was their duty to import that civilization to the world. When, during the Great Depression, Brown Brothers ensured their strength by merging with Averell Harriman's investment bank to form Brown Brothers Harriman, the die was cast for the role the firm would play on the global stage during World War II and thereafter, as its partners served at the highest levels of government to shape the international system that defines the world to this day. In Inside Money, acclaimed historian, commentator, and former financial executive Zachary Karabell offers the first full and frank look inside this institution against the backdrop of American history. Blessed with complete access to the company's archives, as well as a thrilling understanding of the larger forces at play, Karabell has created an X-ray of American power--financial, political, cultural--as it has evolved from the early 1800s to the present. Today, unlike many of its competitors, Brown Brothers Harriman remains a private partnership and a beacon of sustainable capitalism, having forgone the heady speculative upsides of the past thirty years but also having avoided any role in the devastating downsides. The firm is no longer in the command capsule of the American economy, but, arguably, that is to its credit. If its partners cleaved to any one adage over the generations, it is that a relentless pursuit of more can destroy more than it creates.

In December 1848, a young enslaved couple named Ellen and William Craft traveled openly by rail, coach and steamship from Macon, Georgia, to Philadelphia, Pennsylvania. Ellen, who passed for white, disguised herself as a wealthy disabled man, with William as "his" slave. Woo follows their journey north, and in joining the abolitionist lecture circuit. When the new Fugitive Slave Law in 1850 put them at risk, they fled from the United States. Their very existence challenged the nation's core precepts of life, liberty, and justice for all. -- Adapted from jacket.

In The Legacy of the Drevnik: The Exile LanDrin, a young Frost Elf, loses everyone he holds dear. His Uncle, who is like a father to him, killed his parents. His fianc is killed by her father. When his death is ordered LanDrin is forced to leave his home. Only with the help of a dragon and some new friends can he find a way to take back his home. As he tries to find answers to help make sense of his life and his losses, LanDrin finds out that the troubles of his people are only one part of the scheme of the mysterious mages called the Sovershenik. Not all hope is lost, the powerful magic of the ancient Drevnik is found in an unlikely place. LanDrin also learns that the history of his people, the Sovershenik, and the history of the long forgotten Drevnik are all important if he wants to help his people and put an end to the troubles that are engulfing the continent of Tselestial. The first book in the series, The Exile, follows LanDrin as he journeys to learn the skills and knowledge necessary to free his people. After years of training LanDrin and his friends head to Klan Gorod to join the Fighters Klan and find allies in his fight against an ever growing threat. Along the way enemies arise and plots become known that make LanDrin realize that he and his people are just a small part of the plan that has been unfolding for decades. Behind it all seems to lurk the Sovershenik, powerful mages that rebelled, left the Drevnik, and disappeared into history thousands of years ago.