At dawn on April 28, 1789, Captain William Bligh and eighteen men from HMS Bounty were herded onto a twenty-three-foot launch and abandoned in the middle of the Pacific Ocean. Thus began their extraordinary journey to Java. Covering 4,162 miles, the small boat was battered by continuous storms, and the men on board suffered crippling illness, near starvation, and attacks by islanders. The journey was one of the greatest achievements in the history of European seafaring and a personal triumph for a man who has been misjudged by history. Captain Bligh's Portable Nightmare reveals Bligh's great mapmaking skills, used to particular effect while he was exploring with Captain Cook. We discover his guilt over Cook's death at Kealakekua Bay. We learn of the failure of the Bounty expedition and the myths that surround the mutiny led by Lieutenant Fletcher Christian, the trials and retributions that followed Bligh's return to England, his successes as a navigator and as a vice admiral fighting next to Nelson at the Battle of Copenhagen. Combining extensive research with dazzling storytelling, John Toohey tells a gripping tale of seafaring, exploration, and mutiny on the high seas, while also dismissing the black legend of the cruel and foulmouthed Captain William Bligh and reinstating him not just as a man of his times but as a true hero.

The tale of Captain Bligh and the crew of the R.M.S. Bounty following the infamous 1789 mutiny is presented. Bligh and 18 men were set adrift in the middle of the Pacific Ocean, and faced illness, starvation, and attacks by islanders. Toohey reveals Bligh's mapmaking skills and discusses the failure of the Bounty expedition. Drawings & maps.

A study of one imposter and his influential vision for British control over the nineteenth-century Pacific Ocean.

On April 28, 1789, British Capt. William Bligh & 18 men from HMS Bounty were herded onto a 23-foot launch & abandoned in the middle of the Pacific Ocean. Covering 4,162 miles to Java, the boat was battered by storms, & the men on board suffered crippling illness, & near starvation. This journey was one of the greatest achievements in the history of European seafaring & a personal triumph for a man who has been misjudged by history. Toohey reveals Bligh's great mapmaking skills; his guilt over the death of Capt. Cook, with whom he had sailed; the failure of the Bounty expedition & the myths that surround it; & the trials & retributions that followed Bligh's return to England. Illustrations.

After the mutiny on the Bounty on 28 April 1789, led by Fletcher Christian, Captain William Bligh and 18 others were forced onto a 7-metre-long open boat and cast adrift. It was the beginning of a 47-day, 6700-kilometre journey from Tofua (a volcanic island in the Tonga group) to Timor. On this amazing voyage of survival, Bligh wrote daily entries in a small water-stained notebook and a selection of facsimile pages from this notebook is the foundation of In Bligh's Hand: Surviving the Mutiny on the Bounty. All but one of the men survived to reach Timor. In Bligh's Hand gives readers an insight into the character of William Bligh, the man who saved his men's lives through his iron will and stubborn adherence to a relentless regime of rationing and navigational calculations that kept the launch on course.

This remarkable work is a comprehensive historiographical and bibliographical survey of the most important scholarly and printed materials about the naval and maritime history of England and Great Britain from the earliest times to 1815. More than 4,000 popular, standard and official histories, important articles in journals and periodicals, anthologies, conference, symposium and seminar papers, guides, documents and doctoral theses are covered so that the emphasis is the broadest possible. But the work is far, far more than a listing. The works are all evaluated, assessed and analysed and then integrated into an historical narrative that makes the book a hugely useful reference work for student, scholar, and enthusiast alike. It is divided into twenty-one chapters which cover resource centres, significant naval writers, pre-eminent and general histories, the chronological periods from Julius Caesar through the Vikings, Tudors and Stuarts to Nelson and Bligh, major naval personalities, warships, piracy, strategy and tactics, exploration, discovery and navigation, archaeology and even naval fiction. Quite simply, no-one with an interest and enthusiasm for naval history can afford to be without this book at their side.

The English/British have always been known as the sailor race with hearts of oak: the Royal Navy as the Senior Service and First Line of Defense. It facilitated the motto: The sun never set on the British Empire. The Royal Navy has exerted a powerful influence on Great Britain, its Empire, Europe, and, ultimately, the world. This superior annotated bibliography supplies entries that explore the influence of the English/British Navy through its history. This survey will provide a major reference guide for students and scholars at all levels. It incorporates evaluative, qualitative, and critical analysis processes, the essence of historical scholarship. Each one of the 4,124 annotated entries is evaluated, assessed, analyzed, integrated, and incorporated into the historiographical scholarship.