Description

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The National Maritime Museum in Greenwich houses the largest collection of scale ship models in the world, many of which are official, contemporary artifacts made by the craftsmen of the navy or the shipbuilders themselves and ranging from the mid-seventeenth century to the present day. As such, they represent a three-dimensional archive of unique importance and authority. Treated as historical evidence, they offer more detail than even the best plans, and demonstrate exactly what the ships looked like in a way that even the finest marine painter could not achieve.

This book takes a selection of the best models to both describe and demonstrate the development of warship construction in all its complexity from the beginning of the 18th century to the end of wooden shipbuilding. For this purpose it reproduces a large number of model photos, all in full color, and including many close-up and detail views. These are captioned in depth, but many are also annotated to focus attention on interesting or unusual features, which can be shown far more clearly than described. Although pictorial in emphasis, the book weaves the pictures into an authoritative text, producing an unusual and attractive form of technical history. This new and affordable paperback edition will appeal to naval historians and model makers everywhere.

About the Author

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Brian Lavery is one of the Great Britain's leading maritime historians and the author of more than thirty books, including the highly successful Nelson's Navy. He was for many years a curator at the National Maritime Museum and while there became an expert on its models, producing the definitive work on the collection. His recent books on the ages of sail are Anson's Navy and Royal Yachts Under Sail.