She Captains
The textbook authors seem unaware that ancient Phoenicians and Egyptians sailed at least as far as Ireland and England, reached Madeira and the Azores, traded with the aboriginal inhabitants of the Canary Islands, and sailed all the way around Africa before 600 BC. Instead, the textbooks credit Bartolomeu Dias with being the first to round the Cape
... See moreJames W. Loewen • Lies My Teacher Told Me
The truth is, the unlimited power which merchant captains have, upon long voyages on strange coasts, takes away a sense of responsibility, and too often, even in men otherwise well-disposed, substitutes a disregard for the rights and feelings of others.
Richard Henry Dana • Two Years Before the Mast
The merchant kings of the Age of Heroic Commerce were a rogue’s gallery of larger-than-life merchant-adventurers who, during a period of three hundred years, expanded their far-flung commercial enterprises over a good portion of the world for no other purpose than to generate revenue for their shareholders, feather their own nests and satisfy their
... See moreStephen R. Bown • Merchant Kings: When Companies Ruled the World, 16001900
Maps from the early seventeenth century show the fragmented vision of the world’s geography available to mariners. A vast, blank expanse filled these maps, a frightening terra incognita concealing unknown possibilities for commerce or plunder. The only viable trade route to the silks, spices and gems of the mysterious Eastern lands was precarious a
... See moreStephen R. Bown • Merchant Kings: When Companies Ruled the World, 16001900
Half-Safe: A Story of Love, Obsession, and History's Most Insane Around-the-world Adventure (Kindle Single)
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