Average Reviews:
(More customer reviews)This is the first of Casson's titles I read, in the old edition, and I plan to read the new edition which I have in fact purchased. The new edition has been extensively edited, with some new material, but the chapter structure appears to be very much the same as in the old edition. This work is an excellent companion to Casson's "Travel In The Ancient World", but is not about travel. The construction of ships is very old, and the evolution of building methods and sheer size during ancient times makes for fascinating reading. Casson gets my vote for most readable historian, at least regarding ancient history, and I doubt that anyone with an interest in ships and sailing would be able to put this down. Casson's discussion of ancient commercial connections in the Indian Ocean, or the relative size of (for example) the grain hauling behemoths and the much smaller vessels of our more familiar "Age of Sail" should be of interest to those who think Columbus was last, as well as to those with more conventional views.
Click Here to see more reviews about: The Ancient Mariners
Written by the renowned authority on ancient ships and seafaring Lionel Casson, The Ancient Mariners has long served the needs of all who are interested in the sea, from the casual reader to the professional historian. This completely revised edition takes into account the fresh information that has appeared since the book was first published in 1959, especially that from archaeology's newest branch, marine archaeology. Casson does what no other author has done: he has put in a single volume the story of all that the ancients accomplished on the sea from the earliest times to the end of the Roman Empire. He explains how they perfected trading vessels from mere rowboats into huge freighters that could carry over a thousand tons, how they transformed warships from simple oared transports into complex rowing machines holding hundreds of marines and even heavy artillery, and how their maritime commerce progressed from short cautious voyages to a network that reached from Spain to India.
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