The descriptive data in this book, first published in 1989, were obtained from participant observation and interviews with merchant seaman current and retired. In addition there is reprinted a complete set of the laws relating to American seaman between 1918-1970. Together they provide a comprehensive understanding of the historical events surrounding the American merchant seaman, the creation of maritime policy, and the policy itself.

This publication is the eighth in the series The U.S. Navy and the Vietnam War. The publication focuses on the sealift and logistic operations during the war and includes a number of photographs as well as sidebars detailing specific people and ships involved in the logistic operations. This historical pictorial reference would be of interest to students, historians, members of the military, specifically the Navy, and military leaders, veterans, Vietnam War veterans, and the U.S. merchant marines.

"Leon Fink, one of the world's best labor historians, has gone to sea and returned with a powerful yarn about the seafaring workers who built the global economy. Vividly told the breathtaking in scope, Sweatshops at Sea will be remembered as one of the most important histories of our time." Marcus Rediker, author The Slave Ship: A Human History. "Sweatshops at Sea is a masterful history that illuminates the issues of citizenship in a world of porous borders for a workforce that has always been both multinational and multiracial. Leon Fink's thoroughly researched, fascinating book provides readers with a fresh and invigorating perspective on globalization."---Nelson Lichtenstein, director, Center for the Study of Work, Labor, and Democracy, University of California, Santa Barbara.

This is an extraordinary tale of life on the high seas aboard one of the last American merchant ships, the S.S. Stella Lykes, on a forty-two-day journey from Charleston down the Pacific coast of South America. As the crew of the Stella Lykes makes their ocean voyage, they tell stories of other runs and other ships, tales of disaster, stupidity, greed, generosity, and courage.

Rough Waters traces the evolution of the role of the U.S. merchant ship flag, and the U.S. merchant fleet itself. Rodney Carlisle looks at conduct and commerce at sea from the earliest days of the country, when battles at sea were fought over honor and the flag, to the current American-owned merchant fleet sailing under flags of convenience via foreign registries. Carlisle examines the world-wide use, legality, and continued acceptance of this practice, as well as measures to off-set its ill effects. Looking at the interwar period of 1919–1939, Carlisle examines how the practice of foreign registry of American-owned vessels began on a large scale, led by Standard Oil with tankers under the flag of the Free City of Danzig and followed by Panama. The work spells out how the United States helped further the practice of registry in Panama and Liberia after World War II. Rough Waters concludes with a look at how the practice of foreign registry shapes present-day commerce and labor relations.