The Earliest Ships: The Evolution of Boats into Ships (Conway's History of the Ship)

Rating:
Summary: Super
Review: Sientificly written book which covers the early tries of mankind on the water to the great travells of the Vikings. You should be familiar with the technicus termini of wooden shipbuilding while reading this fantastic book.

Rating:
Summary: Exceeded my expectations
Review: Superb!
This is a highly detailed account of the evolution of boats & rafts into ships - lots of detail, drawing heavily on archaeological evidence, without any wild assumptions about the supposed shape of the boats.

This is not a coffee table book, with lots of pretty pictures and large print, but a real source of up-to-the-minute detailed info for the scholar as well as the casual reader.

What is especially good, is that each chapter is written by the leading expert in that field, using the latest available data and supported with lots of photos/drawings to illustrate points.

However, this forces each chapter into a different written style and sometimes this comes across as a little 'heavy', but most are very fluidly written.

I am very impressed with the content, layout, presentation and production of this series (I have 6 of the books so far) and I would recommend this in preference to other comparable books.