The interest of Americans in maritime and naval subjects has been strong over the past twenty years. Publishers - commercial, academic and institutional - have provided the researcher and student with a huge amount of literature. No individual attempting to survey the wealth of material in a single chapter can hope to indicate more than a sampling of the titles available. Some emphasis has been placed on bibliographies with the hope that they will introduce the researcher to some of the thousands of works available. The American publishing market represents one of the largest in the world and will remain so as long as publishing costs, book prices, and merchandising policies are favourable.

The maritime publishing market has also been fuelled by the existence of highly active maritime museums throughout the country and a plethora of historical commemorations which helped emphasize the maritime aspects of America's history and heritage, including the Bicentennial of the American Revolution, the Bicentennial of the French Revolution, the Quincentennial of Columbus’ First Voyage, and the fiftieth Anniversary of World War II, all of which produced, or are producing, a flood of literature. No particular additional emphasis has been given to these commemorations in this review essay.

Non-historical, but highly significant contemporary social factors, such as an existing North American cruise market of three million, and an expectation that this will expand to ten million by the beginning of the twenty-first century, mean that interest in the sea and ships as a leisure destination will expand enormously. No history of passenger cruising is yet available, but such experiences tend to produce readers and even a small percentage can sustain a publishing market on ships, shipping lines, ports-of-call and destinations all over the world. Similar influences may be expected from the many projects aimed at waterside development and historic seaport rejuvenation. Ann Breen and Dick Rigby, Waterfronts. Cities Reclaim Their Edge (New York, 1994) and the fascinating global survey in R. Bruttomesso (ed.), Waterfronts. A New Frontier for Cities on Water (Venice, 1993) give testimony to the strength of the pull exercised by the maritime frontier.