Maritime Maryland: A History

Winner, John Lyman Award, North American Society for Oceanic HistoryWinner, Heritage Book Award, Maryland Historic TrustFirst Place, Professional Scholarly Books, 25th Annual New York Book Show

Harvested for food, harnessed for power, and home to more than 3,600 species of plants, fish, and animals, the Chesapeake Bay and its tributaries have long been essential to the sustainability and survival of the region's populations. Historian William S. Dudley explores that history in an engaging and comprehensive account of Maryland's storied maritime heritage.

Dudley paints a vivid picture of Maryland's maritime past in its broadest scope, exploring the complex and nuanced interactions of humans, land, and water through descriptions of shipbuilding, steam technology, agricultural pollution, commercial and passenger transportation, naval campaigns, watermen, crabbing, and oystering. He also discusses the evolution of recreational boating--yachting, cruising, and racing--and the role of underwater archaeology in uncovering the bay's shipwrecks. These interactions become chapters in the larger story of Maryland's waterways, a story that Dudley tells through insightful prose and stunning illustrations.

This rich history of Maryland's waterways reveals how human enterprise has affected--and been affected by--the Chesapeake Bay and its tributaries.

Binding Type: Hardcover
Publisher: Johns Hopkins University Press
Published: 09/21/2010
ISBN: 9780801894756
Pages: 328
Weight: 2.42lbs
Size: 10.22h x 8.22w x 0.95d

Review Citations: Choice 06/01/2011
Reference and Research Bk News 02/01/2011 pg. 355