The 1950s was a fascinating decade for the great liners. After the global devastation of two decades of war and Depression, shipyards were creating one new liner after another, it seemed, to rebuild and renew passenger ship services all over the world. There were the likes of the Kungsholm and Oslofjord from Scandinavia, the French Flandre and a succession of new liners from P&O-Orient, the Italian Line, Messageries Maritimes and many more. The new hopeful era of the 1950s was highlighted by such brilliant, headline-making ships as the speedy United States, breaking records on an unprecedented scale, the engines-aft Southern Cross and the mastless Orsova. Showcased beautifully by the stunning images and nostalgic outlook of prolific maritime historian William H. Miller, this book shines a well-earned spotlight on some of the world's most popular passenger liners.

A comprehensive guide to the history and technology of transatlantic passenger ships. This book covers the earliest steam-powered liners, through the great ocean liners of the early 20th century, and up to the modern cruise ships of today. With photographs, diagrams, and detailed descriptions of the ships and their voyages, this book is a must-have for anyone interested in the history of ocean travel. This work has been selected by scholars as being culturally important, and is part of the knowledge base of civilization as we know it. This work is in the "public domain in the United States of America, and possibly other nations. Within the United States, you may freely copy and distribute this work, as no entity (individual or corporate) has a copyright on the body of the work. Scholars believe, and we concur, that this work is important enough to be preserved, reproduced, and made generally available to the public. We appreciate your support of the preservation process, and thank you for being an important part of keeping this knowledge alive and relevant.

Bios of passenger ships greater than 10,000 tons in service today. Details include recent launchings and details on decommissioned vessels that have become floating schools and museums. 8 1/4 X 10 1/2, 186 pgs., 300 b/w photos and 16 color pgs.

Bill Miller looks back nostalgically at the P&O and Orient Line vessels of the 1950s and 1960s.

Great British passenger ships

Full of previously unpublished images and insightful text, a nostalgic look back at a century of U.S. passenger ships The United States has produced some of the world's finest, most interesting, advanced, and innovative passenger ships, such as the amazing SS United States, the fastest ocean liner ever to sail the seas, ingloriously left lying in limbo for 42 years. This book also documents passenger ships seized in wartime, notably the giant German SS Vaterland, which became the Leviathan in the United States Lines, as well as many newly built passenger ships, such as Santa Rosa, Lurline, President Cleveland, Independence, and Brasil. Also included are peacetime troopships as well as "combo ships," the once very popular passenger-cargo ships. The great saga of American liners continues to this day with modern cruise ships in Hawaiian service. The cast of ships is both vast and varied, but endlessly fascinating. Presenting many unpublished images alongside historic, insightful text including personal anecdotes of the ships and voyages from passengers and crew alike, William Miller takes the reader on a nostalgic voyage and the great American passenger fleet sails once again.

Exploring the ships at sea across the most glamorous and exciting decade for the great liners The 1930s was perhaps the most glamorous and exciting decade for the great liners, highlighted by the great shipbuilding inter-nation rivalry: Germany's Bremen and Europa, Italy's Rex and Conte Di Savoia, France's Normandie, and Britain's Queen Mary and Queen Elizabeth. Passengers traveled on some of the most popular liners of all time, L'Atlantique, Empress of Britain, Empress of Japan, Queen of Bermuda, President Coolidge, Strathnaver and Strathaird, Orion, Capetown Castle, Oranje, Mauretania and Andes - and many more. Despite the worldwide Depression and a great shift in trading patterns, it was a wonderful era for shipbuilding and the era of Art Deco on the high seas, the age of 'floating Ginger Rogers'.

Roman triremes of the Mediterranean. The treasure fleet of the Spanish Main. Great ocean liners of the Atlantic. Stories of disasters at sea fire the imagination as little else can, whether the subject is a historical wreck - the Titanic or the Bismark - or the recent capsizing of a Mediterranean cruise ship. Shipwrecks also make for a new and very different understanding of world history. A History of the World in Sixteen Shipwrecks explores the ages-long, immensely hazardous, persistently romantic, and still-ongoing process of moving people and goods across far-flung maritime worlds. Telling the stories of ships and the people who made and sailed them, from the earliest ancient-Nile craft to the Exxon Valdez, A History of the World in Sixteen Shipwrecks argues that the gradual integration of localized and separate maritime regions into fewer, larger, and more interdependent regions offers a unique window on world history. Stewart Gordon draws a number of provocative conclusions from his study, among them that the European "Age of Exploration" as a singular event is simply a myth - many cultures, east and west, explored far-flung maritime worlds over the millennia - and that technologies of shipbuilding and navigation have been among the main drivers of science and technology throughout history. Finally, A History of the World in Sixteen Shipwrecks shows in a series of compelling narratives that the development of institutions and technologies that made terrifying oceans familiar, and turned unknown seas into sea-lanes, profoundly matters in our modern world.

The cruise ship market is a 30 billion-dollar industry, and in 2013 it is estimated that it will carry more than 20 million passengers; nor is there any sign of a slow down in the seven percent annual growth. What keeps the passengers coming in such huge numbers isn't the food, the ports or the entertainment. They come for the magnificent floating palaces themselves, the giants of the sea.?In this new book, the author showcases the most influential cruise ships of the last three decades beginning with Royal Caribbean's ground-breaking Sovereign of the Seas. When she was launched in 1988 she was the largest passenger ship constructed since Cunard's Queen Mary entered service some 48 years earlier, and her entry into service sparked a fiercely competitive building boom that continues to this day. ??The reader is taken aboard thirty of the most spectacular ships to reveal how their innovative designs changed the landscape of modern cruising. By employing original and archival photographs, deck plans, cruise programmes, as well as the author's intimate knowledge of many of these vessels, a unique picture is built up of these great ships and it becomes clear that the true Golden Age of Cruising is not in some distant past but exists right now, and that its origins can be traced back to one ship, launched in 1988.??A truly sumptuous and fascinating book for all those drawn to the world of the modern cruise ship.??As seen in Ships Monthly Magazine