Going Dutch
After Germany the week before last, my most recent continental trip has been to Vlaardingen in the Netherlands, where I spent a most enjoyable couple of days at the end of last week. This was centred around a symposium at the town’s excellent museum, right at the side of its old harbour, with the symposium’s […]
If It’s 2019, This Must be Germany
In the Chinese calendar, of course, it’s the Year of the Pig. In the Jewish one, this month marks the end of 5779, in the Islamic one it’s 1441. For most people in the west, it’s 2019. But on the Davies calendar, it’s The Year of Finally Going to Huge Countries that I’ve Inexplicably Never […]
Bored Now: or, Captain Blood Plays Another Game of Solitaire
Maritime history has provided me with many satisfying and pleasurable moments since I started studying it seriously *cough* years ago, but there’s something a bit special about chairing a conference session where [a] all the speakers are running pretty perfectly to time [b] the subject matter is interesting [c] if the chair’s attention does momentarily […]
Back to School
A somewhat scary realisation – this week marks the fortieth anniversary of starting my first teaching job! I’m not entirely sure where that time has gone; for one thing, I can still remember my first staff meeting (probably one of the few I stayed awake in over the years, including the ones later in my […]
Dead Admirals Society Goes Stateside
Our recent trip to the US included some great sightseeing opportunities, and one of them was a wander around lower Manhattan, looking for traces of the original New Amsterdam colony. One unexpected but fascinating by-product of this was the discovery of Trinity Church and its graveyard, and virtually the first monument we came across bore […]
Navies, States and Ideologies 1500-1815
About a month ago, Gijs Rommelse’s guest post on this site introduced the book that he, Alan James and I have co-edited. This has now been published, and last week the three of us discussed several of its themes at the Bangor conference on the Restoration period. We will be reuniting at Vlaardingen in the […]
