In the original dustsheet. Navy cloth binding with gilt title on the spine.

• F.B.A. provides an in-depth photographic presentation of this item to stimulate your feeling and touch. More traditional book descriptions are immediately available.

From Noah’s Ark to the Exxon Valdez, this reference describes the important roles that ships have played in human history and explores in great detail more than one thousand vessels that have helped shape the modern world.

Review: This is the best addition to my collection of nautical/maritime books since my purchase of the Oxford Companion to Ships and the Sea. I’ve already spent many hours reading the different ship histories and learning more about ships I’ve read about since I was a young boy. From Nelson’s Victory to Luckner’s Seeadler and Dewey’s Olympia, Paine’s books have them all. Concise, well-written histories that dwell on the human as well as the technical, make this a must-have for any naval or maritime history buff’s shelf. Just a few quibbles. The Essex class carrier U.S.S. Franklin was probably named after Benjamin Franklin and not the Battle of Franklin. Every other Essex class is named after something from the Revolutionary War, so I would assume that the Franklin is too. Also, I wished Paine had included the U.S.S. Pennsylvania, the 120-gun wooden warship built for the Navy that was burned at Norfolk during the Civil War. I also was surprised to see H.M.S Kelly left out. But these are minor quibbles with a splendid book that has earned a place of honor in my collection