Anyone could swear like a sailor! Within the larger culture, sailors had pride of place in swearing. But how they swore and the reasons for their bad language w

"What Moby-Dick is to whales, Brilliant Beacons is to lighthouses—a transformative account of a familiar yet mystical subject." —Laurence Bergreen, author o

Before the eighteenth century, the ocean was regarded as a repulsive and chaotic deep. Despite reinvention as a zone of wonder and pleasure, it continued to be