Dogwatch and Liberty Days

TECHNOLOGY AND CULTURE Book Reviews 867 Dogwatch and Liberty Days: Seafaring Life in the Nineteenth Century. By Margaret S. Creighton. Salem, Mass.: Peabody Museum of Salem, 1982. Pp. vii + 88; illustrations, index. $14.95 (paper). Starving Sailors: The Influence ofNutrition upon Naval and Maritime His­ tory. Edited byJ. Watt, E. J. Freeman, and W. F. Bynum. Greenwich: National Maritime Museum, 1981. Pp. 212; illustrations, tables, ref­ erences, appendixes, index. £5.95 (paper). Based on 103journals (seventy-six ofwhalemen and twenty-eight of merchant seamen), Margaret S. Creighton’s catalog ofan exhibit origi­ nally at the Peabody Museum of Salem offers a splendid capsule view ofthe life of the American seaman between 1830 and 1875. The book’s chapters take the sailor from the time he begins his voyage, through the tempos ofshipboard routine, to the exposure of men to varieties of weather, to good and bad times at sea, and then to the great emotional release that came from liberty on shore. There is a final chapter on journal keeping and a list of the men who wrote the journals cited. Most of the illustrations are from the seamen’sjournals, supplemented by a few objects that have survived, such as a tarred hat, a sea chest with clothing, a sailmaker’s bag, a medicine chest, and harpoons. Of special interest to readers of Technology and Culture are the in­ sights into the physical aspects of tasks such as the processing of blubber from whales or the toil associated with changing sails. At the same time, thejournals reflect the fascination that foreign societies and cultures have for sailors. For those already familiar with the great descriptive passages on life at sea by Dana, Melville, Cooper, Conrad, and others, the lines written by the ordinary people cited in this work provide additional corrobo­ rating details. Also, the crude but effective drawings add a rich dimen­ sion. All in all the book is an attractive and insightful introduction to the realities of seafaring life, mainly of American whalemen in the last century. Starving Sailors is a collection of papers presented in 1980 at an international symposium at the National Maritime Museum in Green­ wich. At this symposium, maritime historians, nutritional scientists, and medical specialists came together for the first time to share their special insights. Their goal was to evaluate the role of nutrition in relation to physical performance and decision making by seafarers during the past three centuries. The topics discussed include the energy content ofthe maritime diet; 18th- and 19th-century victualing practices of the British Navy; the vitamin requirements of the human body; 200 years of the sailor’s diet; clinical manifestations of vitamin deficiencies; examinations of the nutrition of sailors on various 18thcentury voyages by the British, French, and Spanish; medicine and health in some of the Arctic and Antarctic exploring expeditions; nutritional deficiencies in the crews ofGerman raiders in the two world 868 Book Reviews TECHNOLOGY AND CULTURE wars; and a final paper on neurological factors in decision making. Discussions of medical and nutritional aspects precede those on mari­ time matters. While this results in some repetition of facts, the overall effect is to stimulate thinking and to consider traditional naval and maritime events in a new light. In line with this, the work has an appendix listing suggestions for further research. Scholars interested in the relationships of health to work and vice versa might consider applying some of these topics to the workplaces on shore. Studies on the effects of smoking, alcohol, unbalanced diets, obesity, and sedentary habits on the workers of various industries could be done, as well as the compilation of statistics on mental health and mortality. Harold D. Langley* Technological Diffusion and Industrialisation before 1914. By A. G. Ken­ wood and A. L. Lougheed. New York: St. Martin’s Press, 1982. Pp. 216; tables, notes, bibliography, index. $32.00. This book presents an excellent overview and introduction to the international diffusion of modern industrial technology and to the history of industrial growth from the 18th century up to 1914. The authors—senior lecturers in economics at the University of Queens­ land, Australia—and the material they draw on are very much in the tradition

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