The Autobiography of Phineas Pett

Imagine holding a diary written by the man who helped build the ships that made England a sea power. Phineas Pett was born in 1570 into a family of shipwrights, and he spent his life at the yards where the vessels of empire took shape. This autobiography, compiled from his own journals, follows him from apprentice boy to Master Shipwright at Deptford and Chatham, through the reigns of Elizabeth I and Charles I, through the political storms and personal rivalries that came with serving the Crown. He gives us the nitty-gritty of Tudor and Stuart shipbuilding: the timber, the tools, the techniques, the endless battles with officials who didn't understand why good ships cost good money. But he also lived through history. The Spanish Armada passed while he was a young man learning his trade. By the time he was old, England had the most powerful navy in the world, and his sons were building the ships that would fight the Dutch. This isn't the autobiography of a king or a general. It's something rarer: the voice of the men who actually built the things that made empire possible, written in their own hand, four centuries ago.