Rather a beautiful book with superb photographs. Many of the photos seem to be of incredible model ships but in many cases it was not clear to me whether the pictures were from exquisitely detailed drawing/paintings. I guess, in most cases the photos are of models. But the authors take us from dug-out canoes to the viking longboats and treasure galleons and fighting ships around the time of the Spanish armada .....through to modern luxury wooden motor yachts. A nice sweep of history but some segments completely missed such as the Greek/Roman triemes, quinqueremes.
The authors have benefited immensely from a couple of reconstructions: The Susan Constant, and the Batavia where they have been able to photographically record the whole construction process. Though I did miss the kind of analysis I remember seeing at the Viking Museum in Roskilde, Denmark. Here, in a little vignette they set out what was actually required of a community in terms of person hours of work and other resources to build a typical longboat. It was an immense community effort and I imagine that many of the ships featured in this book also required immense community efforts and/or significant taxation.
I was also rather taken by the luxury wooden motor yachts that took their wealthy owners from their estates in Long Island New York to downtown Manhattan around the 1920's. (Shades of the Great Gatsby).
Overall, quite a lovely book which would probably mean more to a boating aficionado. I give it five stars. ( )