by Bjorn Landstrom
This is such an amazing book: a tour de force, the result of thoughtful research and great art. This is an illustrated history of shipbuilding spanning most of the global history.
The chapters on ancient Egyptian and other Mediterranean shipbuilding are wonderful–interpretations of ship drawings from petroglyphs, papyrus, ancient scrolls and tapestries.
Landstrom explains the importance of the technological innovations, such as the stern-hung rudder, invented in the early 13th Century in the Baltic. And he describes mysterious appearance of the lateen rig in the Mediterranean.