Author: Crosbie Smith File Type: pdf Crosbie Smith explores the trials and tribulations of first-generation Victorian mail steamship lines, their passengers, proprietors and the public. Eyewitness accounts show in rich detail how these enterprises engineered their ships, constructed empire-wide systems of steam navigation and won or lost public confidence in the process. Controlling recalcitrant elements within and around steamship systems, however, presented constant challenges to company managers as they attempted to build trust and confidence. Managers thus wrestled to control shipbuilding and marine engine-making, coal consumption, quality and supply, shipboard discipline, religious readings, relations with the Admiralty and government, anxious proprietors, and the media - especially following a disaster or accident. Emphasizing interconnections between maritime history, the history of engineering and Victorian culture, Smiths innovative history of early ocean steamships reveals the fraught uncertainties of Victorian life on the seas. **Review This wonderful book about early steamships provides an outstandingly authoritative historical account of the impact of engineering on nineteenth-century global economies. Full of fascinating human stories from the age of Brunel and Cunard to the transformations brought about by rapid connections between old and new worlds, Smith provides a fresh and important way to think about the role of technology in history. Janet Browne, Harvard University, Massachusetts Steamships transformed world trade in the nineteenth century. Few know as well as Crosbie Smith the story of the businessmen, engineers, and sailors who built and ran the new global fleets of steamers that worked that transformation, and no one has told it with more penetrating insight. Coal, Steam and Ships is a remarkable contribution to the literature of Britains seaborne empire. Bruce J. Hunt, University of Texas Coal, Steam and Ships is a masterly analysis of the rich, complex and interconnected intellectual, organisational, technological and cultural processes that transformed the steamship from experimental novelties into the elegantly engineered prime movers of the global economy in fifty years. Andrew Lambert, Kings College London Coal, Steam and Ships tells a story with global significance by bringing together deep scholarship and sophisticated historical understanding. Crosbie Smiths mastery of his subject is formidable. The drama and the dangers of the voyages, the conflicts over finance and innovation, and the delicate relationships between interest groups are vividly evoked. A major achievement by one of the worlds most admired historians of science and technology. Ludmilla Jordanova, Durham University Book Description In this engaging exploration of the trials and tribulations of the first mail steamships, Crosbie Smith reveals the uncertainties of Victorian life on the seas. This innovative history shows, in rich detail, how enterprises engineered their ships, constructed empire-wide systems of navigation and won or lost public confidence in the process.

Author: Laura María Agustín File Type: pdf This groundbreaking book explodes several myths that selling sex is completely different from any other kind of work that migrants who sell sex are passive victims and that the multitude of people out to save them are without self-interest. Laura Agustin makes a passionate case against these stereotypes, arguing that the label trafficked does not accurately describe migrants lives and that the rescue industry disempowers them. Based on extensive research amongst migrants who sell sex and social helpers, Sex at the Margins provides a radically different analysis. Frequently, says Agustin, migrants make rational choices to travel and work in the sex industry. Although they are treated like a marginalised group they form part of the dynamic global economy. Both powerful and controversial, this book is essential reading for all those who want to understand the increasingly important relationship between sex markets, migration and the desire for social justice. **