Non-Fiction Releases
This section lists upcoming and recently released non-fiction books about the Age of Sail. They will also appear in the Non-Fiction Listings
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- By: Glenn M. Stein
- Non-Fiction Releases
Glenn M. Stein has a new paperback available for pre-order, Bloody Waters: The Zaragozana and Cuban Piracy in the 1820s. It will be released 18 June 2026 in the UK and 9 July 2026 in the US.
During the early 19th century, Spain was losing its grip on her American colonies, resulting in an explosion of privateering and West Indian piracy. British Royal Navy ships hunted and destroyed pirates wherever they could be found, especially along the Cuban coast. The climax of long days, weeks, and months of running down these villains was the capture of the notorious Captain Cayetano Aragonés in his piratical schooner the Zaragozana.
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- By: Augustine H. Kobayashi
- Non-Fiction Releases
Augustine H. Kobayashi has just released a hardcover book in the UK, Naval Warfare under the Byzantine Empire: From Justinian I to the Fourth Crusade. The US version will be released on 30 May 2026 and the kindle versions on 28 April 2026.
An in-depth study of Byzantine naval power and its decisive role in the empire’s military, political, and territorial history.
While the armies of the Roman Empire, including its late 'Byzantine' phase, have been copiously studied, naval warfare of the period has been neglected. In part this is due to relative paucity of the available sources but Augustine H Kobayashi demonstrates that this does not imply a lack of maritime activity in this period; in fact quite the opposite is true.
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- By: Richard Endsor
- Non-Fiction Releases
Richard Endsor has a new book available for pre-order, The Lost Ships of Charles II's Navy: Understanding the Seventeenth-Century Warship.It will be released in hardcover on 2 June 2026 in the US and 4 June 2026 in the UK.
A comprehensively researched and beautifully illustrated history of the design of the ships of Charles II's Navy, using reconstructed architectural plans based on contemporary records.
The Royal Navy of the late seventeenth century was the greatest enterprise in the country, and in 1677, with Samuel Pepys as Secretary of the Navy, the House of Commons voted to fund the building of 30 new ships, the largest single shipbuilding project up to this point. This new history by award-winning naval historian Richard Endsor describes the history of this great endeavour, and seeks to recreate architectural plans of these ships based on detailed measurements and calculations left behind by Edmund Dummer, an assistant to master shipwright Sir Anthony Deane and later Surveyor of the Navy from 1692 to 1699.
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- By: Michael G. Laramie
- Non-Fiction Releases
Michael G. Laramie has a new book available for pre-order, The Age of Sail 1697–1814: The Brown Water Navies of North America.It will be released in hardcover worldwide on 5 June 2026.
During the American Civil War the term “Brown Water Navy” was coined to distinguish naval riverine and coastal duties from the activities of the Blue Water, or ocean-going fleet. A Brown Water Navy faced a much different set of challenges then the ocean-going fleet. Coastal and inland waterway operations were always prevalent in North America due to the unique geography of the continent. Lakes such as Erie, Ontario, and Champlain were deep enough and large enough that fleets of vessels could contest their waters, while bays, sounds, and the outlets of large navigable rivers abounded along the continent’s east coast from Hudson Bay to New Orleans.
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- By: Paul Martinovich
- Non-Fiction Releases
Paul Martinovich has just released a new book, Sailors of Varied Fortune: The Schombergs afloat and ashore. It is now available worldwide in Paperback
What was it like to serve as an officer in the Royal Navy during the great age of sailing warfare? The varied careers of four closely-related men illustrate the challenges encountered by many officers as they rose in the naval hierarchy. The Schombergs had an unusual family background (they were descended from an immigrant German-Jewish doctor), but they survived storms, battle and even their own mistakes, as they found important roles in the competitive world of the Royal Navy.
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- By: Eric Jay Dolin
- Non-Fiction Releases
Eric Jay Dolin's new book, The Wreck of the Mentor: A True Story of Death, Despair, and Deliverance in the Age of Sail, will be released worldwide ln Hardcover on 2 June 2026 and is currently available for pre-order. A date for the Kindle version is awaited
From the best–selling author of Black Flags, Blue Waters comes the story of the American whaleship Mentor, wrecked in 1832 on a remote reef in the western Pacific. With supplies dwindling, the twenty–two crewmen face not only the miseries of shipwreck in unfamiliar territory but also the profound uncertainty of first contact with the Indigenous people of the Micronesian archipelago of Palau, who within days approach the deserted men brandishing axes, clubs, and spears. In this gripping saga of cultural collision, award–winning historian Eric Jay Dolin vividly reconstructs the Mentor’s doomed voyage, the months of perilous captivity, and the negotiations that followed.
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- By: Paul Magid
- Non-Fiction Releases
Paul Magid recently released his new book Pursuing the Leviathan: The Heroic Life of New England Whaling Captain Benjamin Clough. It is available worldwide in Hardcover and for Kindle.
Set in the golden age of whaling in the nineteenth century, this book brings to life the adventures of Benjamin Clough, best known for single-handedly rescuing the ship Sharon from mutineers in 1842. Clough's heroism earned him a whaling command, which led to a whaling career that for a quarter-century took him into the Atlantic, Pacific, and Arctic Oceans.
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- By: Stuart Buxton
- Non-Fiction Releases
Stuart Buxton recently released Five Flags: The Warship that Reshaped the World. It is available worldwide for Kindle downlad and also, in the US, in Hardcover. The UK Hardcover ill be released 20 July 2025 but can be pre-ordered now.
As wooden ships gave way to ironclads, and sail gave way to steam in the nineteenth century, one warship fought through the civil wars that shaped modern America, Germany and Japan. Its career spanned high politics and secret diplomacy, arms dealers and royal courts, spies, sailors, and samurai across three continents. In a vivid narrative travelling from London to Paris, from Copenhagen to Havana, from Washington to Tokyo, Five Flags brings this incredible true story to life.
Strangled by the Union's naval blockade, the Confederacy needed ships - and turned to Europe to build them. In 1862, Emperor Napoleon III agreed to deliver a unique new design whose 300-pounder canon, 5 inches of armour, and twenty-foot bow ram made her a threat to every warship on earth.
