For two decades, Ben Gerwick's ability to capture the current state of practice and present it in a straightforward, easily digestible manner has made Construction of Marine and Offshore Structures the reference of choice for modern civil and maritime construction engineers. The third edition of this perennial bestseller continues to be the most mo

From evaluating places in which to invest to avoiding offshore scams, this easy-to-understand book provides readers with all there is to know about offshore investing and keeping the money they earn.

Surveys trends in yacht design, discusses safety, modern construction techniques, spars, rigging, sails, and auxiliary equipment, and describes five good boats.

The leading authority in the field offers a unique and comprehensive treatment of the construction aspects of offshore structures, rather than the more commonly addressed design considerations. Extensively updated, this second edition provides a new chapter on extending offshore technologies to inland waterways and emphasizes recent advances-including floating structures, deep-water structures, ice-resistant structures, and bridge foundations. Construction of Marine and Offshore Structures details all the particulars of building in a marine environment, including construction equipment, marine operations, installing piles, pipelines, and cables, steel and concrete offshore platforms, and underwater repairs. Construction of Marine and Offshore Structures provides an essential reference to engineers in the oil and service industries and to marine construction planners, designers, and contractors. New in the second edition: How the physical environment and geotechnical conditions affect construction Increased attention to protecting the natural environment and compliance with regulatory provisions Recent developments in positioning, instrumentation, and underwater inspection, plus a new section on concrete and steel floating structures and installing permanent moorings Expanded treatment of deep water bridge piers as well as locks and dams on major rivers.

Offshore reveals how the vast network of unregulated financial centers—from Luxemburg to the Cayman islands to the tiny Pacific haven of Nauru— amount to a nether realm of drug and arms trade profits, enormous private accounts, and multinational corporate financial holdings. Delving into the scandals, the financial structure, and the history of this hidden side of globalization, sociologist Alain Deneault depicts something larger and more ominous than simple “tax havens” where financial elites and corporations must reside X days out of every calendar year to protect their earnings. Instead, Offshore describes a global base of operations from which massive criminal enterprises and corrupt corporations operate freely and with impunity, menacing developing nations and advanced democracies alike.

The atlas of contemporary capitalism is curious indeed. A desperately poor and civil-war-wracked nation, Liberia, is the world's shipping superpower; the Cayman Islands the fifth-largest financial center in the world; land-locked Zurich a venerable "offshore" banking center. Indeed, it is estimated that half of the global stock of money passes through tax havens. The logic of the offshore world, where millionaires and corporations roam in search of financial advantage, is slippery. It challenges many conventional assumptions about power and economics.In the single most comprehensive account of the offshore economy, Ronen Palan investigates the legal spaces, unregulated and yet maintained and supported by the state system, that have emerged for purposes of international finance, tax havens, export processing zones, flags of convenience, and e-commerce. The offshore economy had its beginnings in the late nineteenth century, saw early development after the First World War, and metastasized in the 1970s. Palan believes that a rapidly expanding offshore economy is now producing a new market in sovereignty; states have discovered that their rights to write law may be used as a commercial asset. This commercialization of sovereignty, he asserts, undermines the legitimacy of the nation-state and supports a form of nomadic capitalism.

A revealing and chilling expose on the hidden side of global wealth and power shows how tax havens have become central to global finance. The author asserts that offshore practices put capitalism and freedom in grave danger.