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Author Ujifusa, Steven, author.

Title Barons of the sea : and their race to build the world's fastest clipper ship / Steven Ujifusa.

Publication Info. New York : Simon & Schuster, 2018.
©2018

Copies

Location Call No. Status
 Bloomfield, Prosser Library - Adult Department  387.5 UJI    Storage
 Cheshire Public Library - Adult Department Lower Level  387.5409 UJIFUSA    Check Shelf
 Colchester, Cragin Memorial Library - Adult Department  387.5 UJIFUSA, STEVEN    Check Shelf
 Manchester, Main Library - Non Fiction  387.5409 UJIFUSA    Check Shelf
 New Britain, Main Library - Non Fiction  387.5 UJI    Check Shelf
 Newington, Lucy Robbins Welles Library - Adult Department  387.54 UJIFUSA    Check Shelf
Edition First Simon & Schuster hardcover edition.
Description xiv, 427 pages, 8 unnumbered pages of plates : illustrations (some color) ; 25 cm
Bibliography Includes bibliographical references (pages 367-400) and index.
Summary "There was a time, back when the United States was young and the robber barons were just starting to come into their own, when fortunes were made and lost importing luxury goods from China. It was a secretive, glamorous, often brutal business--one where teas and silks and porcelain were purchased with profits from the opium trade. But the journey by sea back home to New York could take six agonizing months, and so the most pressing technological challenge of the day became ensuring one's goods arrived first to market, so they might fetch the highest price--making their sellers some of the first millionaires. Barons of the Sea tells the story of a handful of cutthroat competitors who raced to build the fastest, finest, most profitable clipper ships to carry their precious cargo to American shores. They were visionary, eccentric shipbuilders, debonair captains, and socially ambitious merchants with names like Forbes and Delano--men whose business interests took them from the cloistered confines of China's expatriate communities to the sin-city decadence of Gold Rush-era San Francisco and from the teeming hubbub of East Boston's shipyards and to the lavish sitting rooms of New Yorks Hudson Valley estates. Elegantly written and meticulously researched, Barons of the Sea is a riveting tale of innovation and ingenuity that draws back the curtain on the making of some of the nation's greatest fortunes, and the rise and fall of an all-American industry as sordid as it was genteel"--Dust jacket.
Contents Prologue: the patriarch -- The Canton Silver Cup -- Breaking into the family -- Opium hostages -- Yankees in Gotham -- Mazeppa and the problem child -- Captain Nat -- Family pressure under sail -- Memnon: Delano's California bet -- Enter Donald McKay -- Grinnell grabs the Flying Cloud -- At the starting line -- Around the world -- Frightful to look aloft: Sovereign of the Seas -- Great Republic -- Hill and river -- Surprise and danger -- Glory of the Seas -- Keeping it in the family.
Subject Clipper ships -- United States -- History -- 19th century.
Merchant marine -- United States -- History -- 19th century.
Shipping -- United States -- History -- 19th century.
Clipper ships. (OCoLC)fst00864477
Merchant marine. (OCoLC)fst01016936
Shipping. (OCoLC)fst01116352
United States. (OCoLC)fst01204155
Clipper ships -- United States -- History -- 19th century.
Chronological Term 1800-1899
Genre/Form History. (OCoLC)fst01411628
Other Form: Online version: Ujifusa, Steven. Barons of the sea. New York : Simon & Schuster, 2018 9781476745992 (DLC) 2017037569
ISBN 9781476745978 (hardcover ; alk. paper)
1476745978 (hardcover ; alk. paper)
9781476745992 (ebook)
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