The Seventy-Four Gun Ship

440 Book Reviews TECHNOLOGY AND CULTURE would merit the respect of any nineteenth- or twentieth-century industrial mogul” (p. 172). Noble David Cook Dr. Cook, author of Demographic Collapse: Indian Peru, 1520-1620 (New York: Cambridge University Press, 1981) and People of the Colca Valley: A Population Study (Boulder, Colo.: Westview, 1982), is professor of history at the University of Bridgeport. He and his wife, Alexandra Parma Cook, have completed a biographical study of one of the 16th-century Peruvian conquerors and settlers. The Seventy-Four Gun Ship: A Practical Treatise on the Art of Naval Architecture. By Jean Boudriot. Translated by David H. Roberts. 4 vols. Annapolis, Md.: Naval Institute Press, 1986—1988. Pp. 1052; illustrations, tables, glossary, notes, bibliography, index. $289.80 ($58.95/$58.95/$65.95/$ 105.95). Three decades ago, architect Jean Boudriot undertook to express in concrete form his interest in the naval architecture of his native France in the age of sail. Applying his professional training to the task, he began a remarkable series of design monographs focusing on the golden age of sail, roughly 1660—1850. Boudriot was particularly fascinated by warships, which he approached not just as isolated artifacts or even as peculiarly interesting design studies—though he does that too—but as components of a dynamic political, economic, and social system. Although Boudriot’s superb draftsmanship is a major attraction of these works, his breadth of vision in conceiving and framing his self-assigned problem, to understand how ships were designed, constructed, and operated, makes these studies more than magnificent assemblages of plans, elevations, and perspective draw­ ings. His first major project and the subject of this review was a four-volume study of a notional French seventy-four gun ship of the line, circa 1780, which appeared in 1973 —77. Inaccessible to most English-speaking readers by virtue of the French text and—more to the point—the hefty price even after it became available in English, The Seventy-Four Gun Ship is now carried by the Naval Institute Press at a comparatively affordable tariff. Long recognized as a prominent example of an optimal trial-anderror solution to a difficult design problem, the seventy-four (so called for the number of cannon in its broadside batteries) was the mainstay of battle fleets from the early 18th century until the mid-19th. The subject thus cannot be faulted on grounds of historical importance, and French seventy-fours are of particular interest for technical excellence as well. Boudriot chose a vessel of the time of the American Revolution, arguing (correctly in my view) that this was France’s period of greatest naval power, overriding narrowly operational arguments that some later designs were technically superior. His reconstruction is based on two exceptionally fine, unreconstructed TECHNOLOGY AND CULTURE Book Reviews 441 (and thus reliable) contemporary models in the collections of the Musée de la Marine, undergirded by documentary research. The English edition is extensively revised, and the translator’s notes and marginal commentary on comparative French and English terminol­ ogy and practice are particularly valuable. The four volumes address, respectively, the organization of dock­ yards and arsenals, the training of naval architects, the procurement and processing of materials, and the design and construction of the hull; the hull’s interior spaces and fittings; the masts, spars, sails, and rigging; and the manning and operation of the vessel. Drawings of every significant aspect of the vessel, many of them single and double foldouts, are the work’s backbone; most are rendered to a constant scale of 1:72, although less pivotal aspects (e.g., ballast placement and cordage stowage) are to a smaller scale, and more important and interesting features (key hull fittings and rigging details, ordnance, and the officers’ quarters) are to scales as large as 1:12. Attractively drawn human figures give a sense of scale throughout and are instru­ mental in showing how the ship was worked. The sequential sketches of a gun crew in action and of a seaman’s mess seated on the deck consuming their evening meal are particularly effective, the more so since Boudriot has taken pains to accurately depict clothing and per­ sonal effects. He

Archaeology · Art history · Framing (construction) · Glossary · Naval architecture · Political science · Politics · Population · Sociology · Wife · Architecture · Classics · Demography · Engineering · History · Law · Maritime and Coastal Archaeology · Philosophy