The History of the World in Twelve Shipwrecks provides a unique lens through which to view historical events, demonstrating how these tragic incidents have influenced the development of civilization. This book is a must-read for history lovers and anyone fascinated by maritime adventures, as it explores the significant shipwrecks that have had a lasting impact on our world.

A History of the World in Twelve Shipwrecks , by David Gibbins presents a new way to look at history (which is an agreed upon body of knowledge that 'experts' in particular kinds of history decide is the current, accepted history for any given culture, nation or people at any given time and place. In other words: it changes all the time). Note that History comes before Shipwrecks in this author's choice of book title. . . order matters in this case. Still, don't let that hold you back. My first recommendation is that reading in parts is helpful as this author is a maritime archeologist, meaning he's a detail guy and it reads that way.

I always get a lot from tables of content, so here we go, by Chronology the order determined:

1. Early sea traders of prehistory (2nd millennium bc)
2. Royal cargoes - Tutankhamun (14th century bc)
3. Wine trade - Golden Age of classical Greece (5th century bc)
4. A shipwreck from Roman Empire (2nd century ad)
5. Christianity and earl Byzantium (6th century ad)
6. Tang China, the Land of Gold and Abbasid Islam (9th century ad)
7. Vikings! (11th century ad)
8. Mary Rose (1545) - King Henry VIII
9. Santo Christo de Castell0 (1667) - Dutch Golden Age
10. Royal Anne Galley (1721) - gold, piracy and African slave trade
11. HMS Terror (1848) - to the limit of endurance at ends of earth
12. SS Gairsoppa (1941) - courage and loss in the Battle of the Atlantic

[I had this weird idea when I was trying to describe the theory of this book to a friend: "It's like going forward a few millennium and people in that time are trying to figure out who we are, our culture, behaviors and trends, and they go looking for, say 12 train wrecks all over the world to see what they can determine about us." She nodded, "It would be cool to see what they would get from all our our lost cell phones, socks and gumwrappers." Hmm. I think she got it.]

Readers have their favorite parts of book: first lines, last lines, covers, typos, endpapers, cover blurbs, forwards, afterwards - well for me dedications are where I go first, and David Gibbins' is full of feeling:

In memory of my grandfather Captain Lawrance Wilfred Gibbins Master Mariner.

Now that's a proud grandson.

*A sincere thank you to David Gibbins, St. Martin's Press, and NetGalley for an ARC to read and review independently.*

This book did seem rather interesting, shipwrecks with history. But I do not know, it felt rather bland. Each chapter was about a different shipwreck but it also felt like certain ones could just be left out or you can skip them without any problem. I guess that is alright but I do not know fully how I feel about this book in the long run.

From renowned underwater archaeologist David Gibbins comes an exciting and rich narrative of human history told through the archaeological discoveries of twelve shipwrecks across time.

Thank you St. Martin’s Press & Netgalley for sending me a review copy of this book in exchange for an honest review! I wanted to read this book because I like the water and the ocean. I watched the movie Titanic about the shipwreck that happened and I enjoyed that movie but I wouldn’t watch it again because it’s long. I decided to DNF this book after reading 69 pages because the way this is written is very dry. It’s written like a history lesson and it doesn’t have any pictures in here. In my opinion, I would prefer to watch a documentary about shipwrecks instead of reading about them because it’s an interesting subject. I don’t know anything about it and I like watching documentaries.

my middle grade age range, I would probably include excerpts from this book in my curriculum as opposed to the whole text.

A History of the World in Twelve Shipwrecks is a phenomenal historical text, but the content is fairly advanced for my middle grade readers. I specifically requested it for the purpose of including portions of it when we read Ruta Sepetys' Salt to the Sea.

Archaeology is one of the ways in which we learn from the past, and this discipline is highlighted in David Gibbins new book "A History of the World in 12 Shipwrecks." Gibbins is a gifted diver as well as historian, and all of those talents are put together to make a highly informative book in which he takes a look at 12 leading shipwrecks and what they have taught us about the world from the contents of those wrecks.

Let me start out this review with some context! I minored in history in college and am very interested in shipwrecks and how they really function like time capsules in terms of information about time periods. I have been to 4-5 ship/shipwreck centered museums and actively seek them out whenever possible because I think they're so cool. I feel like I'm more interested in a topic like this than most people.

And... I honestly found this book to be pretty dry (pun intended!) I understand that it's supposed to be a history of the world (no pressure) kept feeling like the chapters were so long and unengaging. The author is clearly an expert in European shipwrecks and I appreciated his asides from his own experiences on dives. And that for me was by far the most interesting part of the book. Understandably, the author didn't work on all of the shipwrecks featured in the books. Even on the ones that he did, there were usually only little asides about his experiences. My favorite chapter was the one that really got into the author's experiences on the dives! And that was only one out of twelve!

Another issue is that this is supposed to be a history of THE WORLD in twelve shipwrecks, and a lot of cultures don't have ships OR don't have ships that sink and are able to give us enough archaeological evidence to give us a whole chapter. Or maybe there are! Canoes, kayaks, and other boats used by North American Indigenous tribes are mentioned, but none have their own chapter. The only ship that had anything to do with Africa was a Dutch slave ship. I think that there was effort to include shipwrecks outside of Europe, but they few, far between, and didn't have as much engaging context as the other ships. The author clearly specializes in European shipwrecks, so I'm not surprised to see more chapters based on his experiences. And, again, the ones where he had a personal tie were the most interesting to me. But if it's a history of the WORLD in twelve shipwrecks, I feel like this didn't represent the world-level diversity.

This book is clearly well researched and the author is clearly an expert. However, I think that the scope was wrong for this kind of book. I think it may have worked better for me if it only focused on the part of the world where the author had experiences on the dives and can tie it better into the greater historical context. As it was, most of the chapters focused on Western ships and with such a Western focus rubbed me the wrong way.
I feel like it's too much to try to do engaging, personal content AND find shipwrecks that represent the whole world AND give a history of the world along the way AND do each part of it well.

Overall, this book didn't really work for me. 2.5 stars rounded up to 3 because I did enjoy some of the personal asides from the author and found some of the content engaging. If you're really into shipwrecks and aren't looking for a comprehensive history of the world, give it a read! Thank you to St. Martin's Press and NetGalley for the eARC of this book, my thoughts are my own!

This was an original and exciting way to learn about History. I have always been a fan of archeology and I was drawn to this book because of the richness not only of the subject matter but the thrill of underwater discovery. I loved that this book shared not just the shiny objects that I see in a museum but their full story. That of the people who on the ships before they wrecked, those who often spend years looking for the wreck itself, and then the dangers of the actual excavation itself. This makes this items in museum so read and much more precious because I know the full story.

This is a wonderful book as a gift for any hosts buff or future archeologists. I will be buying a copy of this for my own library and I can't wait to see all the inserts that my galley proof didn't have.

Thanks you NetGalley and St. Martin's Press for this ARC that I volunteered for

I wanted to read this one, but I am unable to download the book because it is unfortunately archived.

This is a neat premise for a historical nonfic, though it's not the only one. I wish this book either went into greater detail about the shipwrecks themselves and the exploring of them, or less detail about the historical minutiae and context--like it was imbalanced. Otherwise, Gibbins presents the reader with 12 nuggets of history from around the world, and it's fascinating to see how different regions influenced each other or developed independently in a time when travel so slow and dangerous and long. This book would be a clever gift for history buffs.

Thank you to St Martins Press and NetGalley for an e-arc to read and review voluntarily.

I was captivated by the idea of looking at human history through the lens of shipping, exploration, conquest, and travel. For me, however, the presentation of each example was too dry. I enjoy nonfiction, and history especially, but this one didn’t engage me the way I’d hoped.

Thanks to St. Martin's Press and NetGalley for providing me with this free ARC in return for my honest review.

Archaeology is one of the ways in which we learn from the past, and this discipline is highlighted in David Gibbins new book "A History of the World in 12 Shipwrecks." Gibbins is a gifted diver as well as historian, and all of those talents are put together to make a highly informative book in which he takes a look at 12 leading shipwrecks and what they have taught us about the world from the contents of those wrecks.
From the discovery of a bronze age ship that was plying the waters off of England in mid 1500 BC, to a shipwreck that occurred in 1941, the author takes us on a historical journey in which we learn as much if not more about history than we do about the wrecks themselves. How does one learn about the past? Through writings, paintings, sometimes word-of-mouth stories, but archaeology fills in a lot of the gaps and can tell us with greater precision, what was occurring at a specific point in history. There's no bias in the artifacts found in a shipwreck, and while not a complete picture of the world is found on a shipwreck, it does give us a microcosm of the world and given has done a fantastic job of documenting this. Divided into 12 individual chapters, this is the book that is filled with detail and can be read one chapter at a time. You could put it down because the next chapter is a completely different shipwreck having nothing to do with the prior discoveries. But if you have the time and the patience to read this book, you will marvel at how the contents of a boat can either affirm or change the way we think and how we look at matters. Some may ask how were they able to date a shipwreck to the mid 1500's BC. some artifacts may have been carbonated, but they also use a fascinating technique, called dendrology and are able to determine the age of the ship by the age of wood, and they can even tell us where the wood came from by using something like wood DNA! I was flabbergasted as I read so many of these stories. We discover an amphora mound outside of Rome that contains millions of pieces of discarded pottery from the height of the Roman Empire. Having been to Rome numerous times, that's not one of the highlights that they always show us, yet it is fascinating as the Colosseum itself. The amount and quantities of wine and olive oil brought to Rome or exported from Rome staggers the imagination and and from the cargo we get to realize how literate the people were in Roman times because they were manifests, markings and all of which had to have been read in order to make sure things were delivered to the right location. From the earliest of times we receive the international flavor of trade as those early shipwrecks have had their contents and artifacts traced too many locations in Europe, Africa, Asia, etc. it's mind-boggling. We also realize at one point that emperor Justinian was basically creating prefab churches. At the time the Roman Empire was based in Constantinople, Justinian was having marble columns, and altars mass produced, and then taken by boat to different ports in the Roman world where they were taken off the boat and assembled to create a new church. when you think of it, it's absolutely amazing that a boat that sailed in the Roman Empire was able to hold an excess of 100 tons of marble! There were so many little facts that I can't list them, but they make each and every chapter unique including the discovery on the HMS Terror, about to sit out to find the Northwest passage and which now rests beneath the sea and can only be investigated by using cameras, but the cameras bring us pictures the help us re-create the life and times of that shipwreck and has expanded our knowledge.
Now many people may find this book hard to read, and it certainly is not easy, but it is one that is worthwhile. As I said chapter by chapter read by bit and he will see a world of history that has been discovered and interpreted through these 12 shipwrecks. It's a marvelous journey, and there's probably no better person than David Gibbins to be our host!

As someone who has a degree in Maritime Studies (essentially maritime cultural anthropology paired with nautical archaeology) this was such a great read. Some of the wrecks are classic I learned in school, the Mary Rose, the Ulubruun, etc, but others were new to me and reignited my love for wrecks. Each section focuses on a wreck, its history, connections, scientific investigation, and impact on today’s historical understanding. If you’ve ever wanted to explore the watery depths of history, this is for you.

I'm a bit of a history geek. I read about it. Watch documentaries about it. Even studied it in college. There's just something about the past that calls to me. How did we get to where we are in modern times? What was it like to live in other eras? How did we learn and discover so much about medicine, mathematics, philosophy, the Universe, physics....humanity itself? I just find it all so fascinating.

I've read hundreds of books about history in general, historical events, famous people and places.... I love it when I discover a new-to-me author who surprises me. And this book definitely surprised me.

Telling history through a progression of shipwrecks through time. Wow. What an interesting concept! I knew when I read the blurb for this book that I needed to read it. And, while I'm glad I did, the follow through was a bit below expectations.

I love the concept of this book. From pre-history through to sunken WWII U-boats, Gibbons picked out 12 interesting shipwrecks and used them as waypoints through history. But I found the presentation a bit dry and like a rote recitation of general facts rather than an interesting dive into these wrecks, the eras they came from, and what they can tell us about the people who lived in those eras.

Did I find the information interesting? Yes. Did I appreciate his choices for wrecks to feature. Yes, again. Did I enjoy reading this book? No, not really.

History can be presented in a way that makes it pop from the page and become engaging, interesting and intriguing. Gibbons' writing did not give me that feeling. I felt like I was in a history lecture given by the professor nobody wants to get -- the class everyone dreads. Like the English professor I had in college that made me loath Shakespeare with a passion because he was so incredibly boring that it just killed any enjoyment or learning I could have gleaned from his class.

That sounds harsh. It's not meant that way. The concept is wonderful. The history is amazing.

But the writing....is dry and boring.

I thought maybe I was just expecting too much. So I peeked at other reviews, and I see that lots of other readers agree with me. So, this is my honest review.

Great concept. I can tell the author is knowledgeable. But the book is boring. There's no life in the words. I will gladly read a future book by this author if he puts some spark in his style....puts some light in the words he is sharing with readers.

This just off as dull. I'm giving this 3/5 stars based on the creative concept and the wrecks he chose to feature. But the actual presentation could have been so much more engaging and interesting.

**I voluntarily read a review copy of this book from St. Martin's Press. All opinions expressed are entirely my own.**

Every once in a while, my childhood interest in marine biology merges with my ever-present love of history. Reading the description for David Gibbins’ recent book, A History of the World in Twelve Shipwrecks easily caught my attention. It wasn’t exactly what I was expecting (I think I was expecting or hoping more for something focused on specific wrecks that had a more direct impact on world history rather than the other way around, like how the destruction of the USS Maine or the sinking of the Lusitania helped lead the US into war). And though the book meandered a bit, focusing more on wrecks linked to British history, I still thoroughly enjoyed the underlying concept for the book and found the approach to exploring world history to be unique and engaging. Spanning from the earliest prehistory through to World War II, Gibbins’ personal experience diving many of the wrecks he writes about frequently brings details of the archaeological process to the fore and adds an air of a memoir to the book.

Beginning with an early Bronze Age wreck that has revealed to historians a lot about how the earliest voyages back and forth across the English Channel, Gibbins gives what history he can about the discoveries and recovery processes for each wreck. Each wreck’s origin date gets closer and closer to the present, but the history of the archaeological recoveries and analysis varies. For the earlier wrecks that aren’t specified in the historical record, Gibbins uses the recovered artifacts and other, similar recoveries to help tie the wreck to local and global historical context. As the wrecks reach the fifteenth and sixteenth centuries, there’s greater documentation about the ships, their passengers and crew, their cargoes, and their specific voyages to provide accounts not just of the time period and its trade or the state of international relations, but also of the specifics of how, when, and why the ships foundered and were lost.

The use of “A” instead of “The” at the beginning of the title is clearly deliberate given the twelve wrecks that the book focuses. I might argue it would be even more accurate if the title were A History of the British World in Twelve Shipwrecks given how much Gibbins ties each wreck specifically back to British history. There were no wrecks that were based in or around South America (allusions to the Caribbean are about as close as it got on that front). The majority of the ships had direct ties to Britain whether it was the Romans who occupied parts of Britain, government agents being sent to oversee colonies or the Empire, exploratory expeditions, or ships acting in the interest of the British during times of war. Most of the ships that make up the book even wrecked in waters that were quite close to the British Isles with three in the same specific stretch just off the coast. It’s unclear how much Gibbins focused on these wrecks because of his personal experience diving them but given the level of detail and the descriptions for them, it makes sense why he would. Of course, the personal touch is nice, but also adds another element to the book itself, veering close to memoir.

While those personal touches can be fascinating, they also contribute to the frequent feeling of jumping around, adding further timelines to the story being told when there are already so many. For some of the wrecks there’s the historical context of the ship in its original “present” and the circumstances surrounding its wreck. Then there’s the different attempts made through history, of which, some of the wrecks garnered several. Those sometimes diverge into a history of diving and salvaging itself as Gibbins explains specific techniques attempted (and largely, failed). Then there may be his own personal history diving the wreck or working the most recent recovery efforts related to it. Moving between the different timelines and their various tangents leaves the book feeling a little scattered. Gibbins is thorough and I’m not sure there’s any better way to organize and tackle the different threads he addresses… but it just doesn’t feel like it quite works as a whole. I think it’s simply a case of trying to include too much.

There are numerous cases in history where one little thing could have saved the ship....or sunk the ship. Of course, this is true of anything and everything in history. This novel is somewhat about the 'butterfly effect' but on a scale the size of the seven seas.
I loved it! And read it in bite-sized chunks since each shipwreck was its own story. But having loved that part of it, I really wish the book as a whole was better organized.
Even ten pages in, let alone when finished, gave me a huge appreciation and respect for the labor of love this author undertook to share these disasters.

In his book, A History of the World in Twelve Shipwrecks, David Gibbons, underwater archeologist, gives a fascination look at history from the 2nd millennium BCE to WWII through the exploration of shipwrecks. He looks at what is known of each ship’s provenance, where it originated, where it had been before it sank, what it is known about its cargo including what has survived, and a bit of the history of the area where the ship was found and little bit about important historical events of the time.

I enjoyed this book quite a lot but, as other reviewers have pointed out it reads in parts much like a text book and could be rather dry in some places. And, like any book, that covers large periods of history, some is bound to resonate more than others based on the reader’s specific interests. Still, for anyone interested in snapshot portraits of various periods of history, underwater archeology, or the evolution of commerce and/or shipbuilding through the ages, it is well worth a read.

I received a copy of this book from Netgalley and St Martin’s Press in exchange for an honest review

Sea Bottom Time Capsules

Civilization is driven by commerce and technology. One feeds the other. Historically, much of that commerce has moved by sea. In turn, ships moving cargoes are influenced by their times’ technology. Historian Fernand Braudel called the sea “the greatest document of its past existence.”

A History of the World in Twelve Shipwrecks by David Gibbins shows how, through marine archaeology, the sea allows the world’s history to be read. He uses twelve wrecks as a springboard for looking at the state of the world when the ships sank.

He starts in prehistory examining a 2nd Millennium BC Bronze Age vessel. He finishes 4000 years later, looking at a 20th century steamer torpedoed and sunk during World War II. Along the way he stops at ten different places: Ancient Egypt, Greece and Rome, Byzantium, Tang China, the Viking Era, King Henry VIII’s England, the Dutch Golden Age, 18th century piracy, and 19th century exploration.

Each chapter uses a period wreck to examine the ship and the times which created it. Every shipwreck is a time capsule, preserving the history of the period it was built. It reveals goods traded, existing inventions, evidence of how people lived and indications of their interests. Diet, living standards, education levels and religious beliefs are preserved in part by the sea, waiting to be uncovered.

This book is also a history of marine archaeology, a discipline which emerged in the last half of the 20th century. Gibbins explains how technologies like the aqualung and remote operating vehicles offered access to previously inaccessible wrecks starting in the 1960s. He describes the growth of underwater archaeology and the increasing sophistication of the technologies used to find and preserve artifacts on the sea bottom.

He also shows how and why wrecks offer special access to history. They sharply define a point in time, and reveal the lives of the individuals involved, from a merchant in Tutankhamun’s time to a survivor of a torpedoed ship in the Atlantic.

For Gibbins, a renowned underwater archaeologist, this is intensely personal story. He participated in many of the expeditions to the wrecks highlighted in this book. He helped make the discoveries and contributed to interpreting results. The twelve wrecks explored are highlights of his career.

A History of the World in Twelve Shipwrecks is at once a history and an adventure tale. It brings the realities of the past to life, while illustrating the excitement resulting from uncovering it.

“A History of the World in Twelve Shipwrecks,” by David Gibbins, St. Martin’s Press, 2024, 304 pages, $32.00 (Hardcover), $15.99 (E-book), $20.89 (Audiobook) $45.95 (Audio CD)

This review was written by Mark Lardas, who writes at Ricochet as Seawriter. Mark Lardas, an engineer, freelance writer, historian, and model-maker, lives in League City, TX. His website is marklardas.com.

Who is not intrigued at exploring a shipwreck? Come on, there might be treasure! Or at least very cool stuff, right? Well, David Gibbins, an archeologist and diver, strongly believes that the stuff found in a shipwreck reflects the trade history and economic environment at the time the ship went down. In A History of the World in Twelve Shipwrecks, he provides the reader a chance to explore that history.

The first shipwreck was found in Dover during a excavation below the road. This boat was used to trade across the Channel during the middle of the Bronze age (about 1550 B.C.). The next shipwreck comes from the Mediterranean coast of Turkey from the time of Tutankhamun or Nefertiti based on a gold scarab found in the wreck. Also in the wreck were copper and tin ingots, jars of terebinth resin, glass ingots, various Cypriot dining dishes, and ivory from elephants and hippopotamus. The third wreck was also off of Turkey, but on the Aegean coast and dated to be from the classical age of Greece. The wreck had 196 wine amphoras and associated drinking-ware.

Wreck number four was a cargo ship with olive oil and fish sauce from A.D. 200 during the reign of Septimius Severus off the coast of Sicily right near where the author's grandfather had landed in WWII. Wreck number five was also off the coast of Sicily filled with prefabricated marble elements for a church sent out from Constantinople by Emperor Justinian in the 6th Century A.D. For wreck number six, the reader travels to Indonesia to explore a wreck that could have been featured in the tales of Sinbad the Sailor. The wreck had 57,000 Tang Dynasty Chinese bowls created for export to Abbasid Persia along with other cargo.

Next David Gibbins uses several Norse ships found in scattered locations to talk about the trade, explorations, and conquests made by the Vikings that culminated in the invasion of England in 1066 A.D. Wreck number eight looks at the sinking (1545 A.D.) and recovery of The Mary Rose, King Henry the VIII's flagship. Wreck number nine has Gibbins diving on the Mullion Pin Wreck (1667 - Santo Christo de Castello) off Cornwall and discussing the cargo lost in that wreck which included lost paintings by Rembrandt van Rijn, thousands of brass clothing pins, spices, hides, and other trade goods.

Wreck number ten was The Royal Anne Galley (1721) which sank off Lizards Peninsula in Cornwall while conveying the new governor of Barbados and then off to pursue pirates such as Bartholomew Roberts. Wreck number eleven has Gibbins returning to Canada to dive on the HMS Terror which sank in 1848 as part of the John Franklin expedition disaster. Wreck number 12 covers the story of SS Gairsoppa which was sunk in 1941 by a U-Boat while carrying 17 tons of silver from India to Great Britain.

In each chapter of A History of the World in Twelve Shipwrecks, David Gibbins provides the reader a chance to experience the thrill of undersea exploration while providing a context for the wreck and its place in world history. So read this title and find out for yourself!

This book needed more paragraphs. The chunks of text were so dense and at times difficult to read. The tangents that the author went off on were also so distracting at times. I wanted to really delve into some of the wrecks that I hadn't read about before, but there were only little bits of actually talking about the ships in between long context passages about the time. I guess I understand how this would be useful for some people, but I really wanted more of the actual shipwrecks.