An immersive dive into the meaning and mystique of shipwrecks The sea is the largest museum on earth, with more than a million lost ships resting in its depths. Those shipwrecks date back thousands of years, some from civilizations long vanished, others from more recent history. Some are famous, others obscure and unremembered but each has a story to tell. In The Great Museum of the Sea, archaeologist, museum director, television host, journalist, and award-winning author James Delgado takes the reader on a personal tour of the world's wrecks, including many of the more than a hundred lost ships he has personally discovered and investigated, including Titanic, USS Arizona, and the slave ship Clotilda. The Great Museum of the Sea vividly explains how and why ships experience catastrophe at sea, and why their remains have captured our imagination for millennia. Shipwrecks engage us in many ways--we treat them as tombs, but also recover them for museums and memorials, and salvage them for treasure. Authoritative and informed by decades of shipwreck expeditions, Delgado's account offers an insider's perspective, taking the reader into the deep and behind the scenes.

[A]n encyclopedic but engaging history of all things related to ships, sailors and their sometimes disastrous ends... Like a museum curator who walks you through an art collection and shows you more than the brush strokes on a canvas, Mr. Delgado explains that shipwrecks are not simply remnants of ancient vessels. * The Wall Street Journal *
A superb overview of shipwrecks, covering hundreds of wrecks from around the world, from the most-famous examples to local fishing boats, and covering a timespan from antiquity to the Cold War. ... Delgado is a master storyteller. * Andrea Hamel, Current Archaeology *
A truly fascinating book about the human history of shipwrecks. * Katy Stickland, Practical Boat Owner *

James P. Delgado is Senior Vice President of SEARCH, Inc., the leading cultural resources firm in the United States. Before that, he was Director of Maritime Heritage for the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration and President and CEO of the Institute of Nautical Archaeology (INA). He was also host of the National Geographic international television series "The Sea Hunters" featuring best-selling author Clive Cussler. Author of more than 20 books, including War at Sea and The Curse of the Somers, more than a hundred scholarly and popular magazine articles, and a regular guest in documentary films, he is senior consultant and regularly appears in National Geographic's international television series "Drain the Oceans." For decades he has led diving and excavation teams, most recently at the site of the wreck of the Clotilda, the last ship known to have brought slaves to the United States.