Down East: An Illustrated History of Maritime Maine [Paperback]

A truly visual journey along a storied coast.Such an introduction to a complex subject has its particularchallenges. Selection is everything. It must be complete but not smother us withfacts. What we want is the pithy remark, the significant detail, the compellingand memorable generalization. And no dumbing down. Keep us awake, but tell uswhat we need to know. Paine succeeds on every level.Thisengaging book, chronicling Maines maritime history from the first explorers toour modern fisheries, can be read in an evening but will be referred to againand again. LincolnPaine is the author of The Sea andCivilization.Paineseconomy of phrase and clarity of purpose make this book a delight.Paine's a lyrical stylist,and the breadth of his historical vision isextraordinary.The work is interspersed with prose and poeticalwork from local Mainers, making it as much a discourse on maritime culturalidentity as it is an historical guide to the development of maritime Maine. Italso tends to depart from the cold hard facts of many maritime histories, drawingmore upon the emotive elements of the historical record.Thebooks intent is to give the general reader an enjoyable and accurate overviewof the states maritime history. The trick is to avoid duplicating otherhistorians and still make it useful to scholars and buffs&. Most writers wouldhave shrunk from the task or failed. Remarkably, Paine succeeds. How the writeraccomplishes this provides a pointed lesson to historical writers.Ithas been my experience that histories packed with information are usuallytemptingly easy to put down, and that readable ones are likely to besuperficial. Down East, however, has the uncommon virtue of being botheminently readable and highly informative.Lincoln Paines Down East: AMaritime History of Maine is an eloquently condensed history of Mainesmaritime heritage. . . . It is the history of sail and the Maine coast thatlifts [his] artfully condensed saga from mere fact to enjoyable ló&