This book presents a comprehensive historical analysis of merchant shipping on the high seas and associated shipbuilding under sovereign U.S. jurisdiction from precolonial times to the present. It identifies U.S. policy developments that have affected the merchant marine and shipbuilding industries.

Report and recommendations on the shipbuilding industry in the USA - covers shipbuilding costs and prices, factors governing competitiveness, employment and wages, subsidies, etc. References and statistical tables.

Considers S. 1274, to repeal U.S. Shipping Board approval requirement for construction of ships in American shipyards for foreign account.