During 200 years the East India Company grew from an association of Elizabethan tradesmen into a powerful organization. As a commercial enterprise it came to control half the world's trade and as a political entity it administered an empire. This book looks at the history of the Company.

Describes the rise of Britain to naval greatness, and the central place of the Navy and naval activity in the life of the nation and government. This work describes not just battles, voyages and cruises but how the Navy was manned, how it was supplied with timber, hemp and iron, how its men were fed, and how it was financed and directed.

A fascinating exploration of a devastating conflict in command styles during the Battle of Jutland

Under fourteen captains, the ship Bellerophon played a conspicuous part in three of the most famous sea battles: the battle of the Glorious First of June (1794); the battle of the Nile (1798); and the battle of Trafalgar (1805). This book presents the story of an eighteenth-century fighting ship - known to her crew as the Billy Ruffian.

Until Vasco da Gama discovered the sea-route to the East in 1497-9 almost nothing was known in the West of the exotic cultures and wealth of the Indian Ocean and its peoples. This book traces the history of its exploration and exploitation.

Mauritius was once the home of the ill-fated dodo. The indigenous flora and fauna of Mauritius were, by the 1970s, hanging onto their existence by their fingernails. When Gerald Durrell went to rescue some of these creatures from extinction, he experienced danger and discomfort, but enjoyed the adventures greatly.