My book, Dockworker Power: Race and Activism in Durban and the San Francisco Bay Area, hopefully will be of interest to readers of the Port Towns & Urban Cultures blog. The title proclaims its basic thesis. Though many folks are unaware of it, including a surprising number of labor and maritime historians, the very term […]
The First World War was unprecedented in the level of destruction and death that was inflicted across the world. Millions were killed or rendered into refugees and buildings, infrastructure, farmland and housing were left in a ruinous state by the impact of the conflict. However, whilst the war brought dislocation and disarray to the lives […]
The tide creeps in: why maritime history matters Can we even imagine a world without the sea and its influence? Trying to define maritime history in his introduction to ‘The Sea and Civilization’, Lincoln Paine asks the opposite question: what exactly is ‘terrestrial history’? He tries to re-imagine the story of mankind as a land-bound […]
