Sweatshops at sea : merchant seamen in the world's first globalized industry, from 1812 to the present /

Fink (Univ. of Illinois at Chicago) has contributed to maritime history by producing a legal, administrative, and labor history of the merchant marine. It focuses overwhelmingly on the US and Great Britain, and the seamen of the title are chiefly the object of the author's study, rather than the actors. The merchant marine certainly has received significant attention by national governments, humanitarian reformers, and labor organizers, in tacit recognition of the critical security nature of the enterprise. Despite the security interests involved, legislative, labor, and legal attempts to obtain work and humanitarian benefits for the merchant seamen mostly foundered on the rocks of ethnic racism, national self-interest, and global enterprise. The alien nature of the mobile, international, and multiracial merchant seamen largely frustrated the implementation of significant reforms and, for the most part, negated the motives of lawmakers, reformers, and organizers. The author's inclusion of popular literary depictions of seafaring and seamen reflects the difficulties of popular understanding of the alien nature of the merchant marine, despite popular sympathies with the seamen. Summing Up: Highly recommended. General readers and above. J. Rogers Louisiana State University at Alexandria