The Complete Encyclopedia of Sailing Ships 2000 BC - 2006 AD is a detailed look into the history and technical development of the sailing vessel from a primitive beginning right up to the present. Although most sailing vessels are now built for pleasure or sail training, there is also a thriving effort in the reconstruction of earlier ships, and in a time of rising fossil fuel prices wind power is also being reinvestigated seriously for merchant vessel propulsion. This book provides a beautifully balanced and lavishly illustrated history of the sailing vessel from the primitive reed boats of the Egyptians, to the steadily developing warships and merchant vessels of the Phoenician, Greek and Roman times, to the varying vessels of the Vikings and other medieval seafarers and great maritime explorers, to the emergence of the classic age of sail in the middle of the 17th century at the time of the Spanish Armada. Steady but diverging development separated the warship from the merchant vessel, the former maturing as the great wooden hulled fighting vessels of Nelson's day and the latter into the sleeker merchant vessels epitomized by the clipper ships and then the final metal-hulled barques and barquentines with their many masts,
Of course there were also far larger numbers of smaller vessels, some square-rigged and other fore-and-aft rigged, to meet the demands of coastal traders, fishermen and smugglers. Less glamorous than the deep-ocean vessels, these were just as important for the men who sailed them and the communities which were dependent on them, and are therefore wholly worthy of consideration.