From 1953-1994, sixty-five U.S. Navy ocean minesweepers (MSOs) swept mines; searched the seafloor for downed aircraft, sunken ships, and lost munitions; "showed the flag" throughout the world, even sailing up the Congo and Mekong Rivers, calling at dozens

From the voyage of the Argonauts to the Tailhook scandal, seafaring has long been one of the most glaringly male-dominated occupations. In this groundbreaking interdisciplinary study, Margaret Creighton, Lisa Norling, and their co-authors explore the relationship of gender and seafaring in the Anglo-American age of sail. Drawing on a wide range of American and British sources—from diaries, logbooks, and account ledgers to songs, poetry, fiction, and a range of public sources—the authors show how popular fascination with seafaring and the sailors' rigorous, male-only life led to models of gender behavior based on "iron men" aboard ship and "stoic women" ashore. Yet Iron Men, Wooden Women also offers new material that defies conventional views. The authors investigate such topics as women in the American whaling industry and the role of the captain's wife aboard ship. They explore the careers of the female pirates Anne Bonny and Mary Read, as well as those of other women—"transvestite heroines"—who dressed as men to serve on the crews of sailing ships. And they explore the importance of gender and its connection to race for African American and other seamen in both the American and the British merchant marine. Contributors include both social historians and literary critics: Marcus Rediker, Dianne Dugaw, Ruth Wallis Herndon, Haskell Springer, W. Jeffrey Bolster, Laura Tabili, Lillian Nayder, and Melody Graulich, in addition to Margaret Creighton and Lisa Norling.

Describes and evaluates in terms of presentation, rules, playability, realism, and complexity, wargames located in various ages and in real and imaginary lands

The War of 1812 is typically noted for a handful of events: the burning of the White House, the rise of the Star Spangled Banner, and the battle of New Orleans. But in fact the greatest consequence of that distant conflict was the birth of the U.S. Navy. During the War of 1812, America’s tiny fleet took on the mightiest naval power on earth, besting the British in a string of victories that stunned both nations. In his new book, Ships of Oak and Guns of Iron: The War of 1812 and the Birth of the American Navy, author Dr. Ronald Utt not only sheds new light on the naval battles of the War of 1812 and how they gave birth to our nation’s great navy, but tells the story of the War of 1812 through the portraits of famous American war heroes. From the cunning Stephen Decatur to the fierce David Porter, Ships of Oak and Guns of Iron relates how thousands of American men and boys gave better than they got against the British Navy. The great age of fighting sail is as rich in heroic drama as any epoch. Dr. Utt’s Ships of Oak and Guns of Iron retrieves the American chapter of that epoch from unjustified obscurity, and offers readers an intriguing chronicle of the War of 1812 as well as a unique perspective on the birth of the U.S. Navy.

-- Presents a behind-the-scenes look at the scale-model ship design and construction for the Emmy-winning A&E series Horatio Hornblower -- Illustrated with more than 100 color and black-and-white photos of the models, on-set production shots, and original draft plans For A&E's dramatization of C. S. Forester's Horatio Hornblower, producers lavishly funded astounding re-creations of the epic battles scenes. In Hornblower's Ships, Martin Saville interweaves the history of Nelsonic-era shipbuilding with his account of the research, planning, and construction stages of the eleven specially commissioned, fully working, scale models of Forester's famed vessels. The book also includes an invaluable reference section detailing the ship types, full specifications, historical precedents, the fictional role of the series' vessels, and scale plans of the vessels that will delight both nautical enthusiasts and model builders.