Coastal Maine: A Maritime History

by Roger F. Duncan, Earle G. Barlow (Illustrator), Kathy Bray (Illustrator), Consuelo E. Hanks (Illustrator)

Overview

A fascinating and comprehensive chronicle of four hundred years of maritime history along the Maine coast.

Roger Duncan recounts four hundred years of Maine's rich maritime history, from the early seafarers' discovery of its valuable resources and the families that settled the land, to Maine's role in the history of the US in peacetime and in war. He traces the changes in Maine's economy over the past century: the demise of the coastal trade; the burgeoning popularity of pleasure boating after World War II; the hardships that beset the fishing and lumber industries; and the rise of tourism. This anecdotal panorama of people, land, boats, and water will absorb historians, nautical enthusiasts, and New Englanders alike.

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9780881505559
Publisher:	Countryman Press, The
Publication date:	06/17/2002
Edition description:	1ST COUNTRYMAN
Pages:	574
Product dimensions:	6.00(w) x 9.10(h) x 1.50(d)

About the Author

Roger F. Duncan edited and revised the fifth through tenth editions of his father's definitive A Cruising Guide to the New England Coast. He is also the author of Sailing in the Fog, Eastward, and Coastal Maine. He lives in East Boothbay, Maine.

Editorial Reviews

The first documented European visitor to the Maine coast was Giovanni Verrazano in 1524; subsequent explorers--Sir Humphrey Gilbert, Samuel de Champlain and John Smith--were then followed by fishermen and fishing settlements in succeeding centuries. By the 17th century, Maine was a hotbed of conflict among Indians, French and English. Duncan, coauthor of A Cruising Guide to the New England Coast, offers a sprightly history of maritime Maine through four centuries. Describing such vessels as pinnaces, shallops, clippers and schooners, he writes about privateers and pirates, shipbuilding and trade, fishermen and yachtsmen. He reports on the modern-day decline of the fishing industry and efforts at regulation and renewal, on fish farming and research on coastal ecology, concluding with the depiction of a summer day at the shore. Saltwater sailors and boat buffs, in addition to locals, will enjoy this history. Illustrations not seen by PW. (Aug.)

Publishers Weekly - Publisher's Weekly

This highly detailed survey of more than 400 years of coastal Maine's history offers fascinating information about the sea, the people, and the land. Drawing primarily on secondary sources, the author brings to the book an intimate knowledge of the Maine coast and sailing experience that provide readers with a sense of involvement not normally found in survey histories. Chapter notes provide a virtual treasure trove of detail about the characters, places, and events in Maine's maritime past that enliven and explain information in each chapter. This helps make technical material such as that on 17th-century ships and their navigation easier to understand. Duncan has produced a detailed, lively history of Maine and the sea that is a required purchase for any library laying claim to a serious collection in American maritime history.-- Harold N. Boyer, Marple P.L., Broomall, Pa.

Library Journal