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While numerous studies have examined Woodrow Wilson's policy of neutrality prior to US entry into World War I, none has focused on the actual merchant ship losses that created the final casus belli. This work focuses on what the president knew and when he knew it concerning the loss of ten ships between February 3 and April 4, 1917.

Passamaquoddy Bay lies between Maine and New Brunswick at the mouth of the St Croix River. Rich in beaver pelts, fish, and timber, the area was a famous smuggling center after the American Revolution. This book examines the reasons for smuggling in this area. It interprets smuggling as provoked by government efforts to regulate borders.

Abraham Whipple (1733-1819) is little-known, yet intrepid and frequently successful Continental Navy officer who contributed significantly to the War for Independence. This biography of Whipple presents a look inside the life of this Continental officer. It illustrates at a personal level the complexities of naval warfare.

The geopolitical situation in the Mediterranean before the First World War generally has been ignored by historians. In the years leading up to the war, however, waning British control of the sea occupied the minds of leaders from Austria-Hungary, Italy, and France to the isles of Great Britain. This change was driven by three largely understudied events: the weakening ability of the British Mediterranean Fleet to provide more ships for the North Sea, Austria-Hungary's decision to build a navy capable of operating in the Mediterranean, and Italy's decision to seek naval security in the Triple Alliance after the Italo-Turkish War. These three factors radically altered the Mediterranean situation in the years leading up to the First World War, and they forced Britain and France to seek accommodation from each other. These power shifts also prompted the French to undergo a rapid naval build up, commissioning new warships to defend their own interests as well as those of the British. All of this activity has been largely obscured by the July Crisis of 1914 and the ensuing world war. Traditional history has looked backward through the lens of the war in order to explain the situation in the Mediterranean in 1914. Hendrickson, however, reverses course, chronicling the naval and diplomatic events that unfolded in the region prior to the outbreak of fighting in order to understand how policymakers perceived the changing Mediterranean world they desperately wanted to control.

One of the untold stories of World War II is the guarding of Greenland and its coastal waters, where the first U.S. capture of an enemy ship took place. For six months in 1942 and against standing orders of the time, Thaddeus Nowakowski (now Novak) kept a personal diary of his service on patrol in the North Atlantic. Supplemented by photos from his last surviving shipmates, Novak's diary fills a void in the story of American sailors at war in the North Atlantic. It is the only known diary of an enlisted Coast Guard sailor to emerge from WWII.