The technology and industry of constructing vessels capable of crossing open water — from the dugout canoes of the Neolithic to the ironclad battleships and container carriers of the industrial age — that connected continents, moved goods and armies, transmitted religion and disease, and organized the global economic system that still operates today.
In 1405, a Chinese fleet commanded by the eunuch admiral Zheng He sailed from Nanjing carrying roughly 27,000 men aboard vessels that dwarfed anything afloat in Europe. The treasure ships — the largest wooden vessels ever built, some reportedly 400 feet long — visited Southeast Asia, India, Arabia, and East Africa. They brought silk and porcelain. They brought back giraffes and ambassadors. Then the voyages stopped. China dismantled its ocean-going fleet, restricted maritime commerce, and turned its attention inward. Sixty years later, two small Portuguese caravels rounded the Cape of Good Hope, and the world that Chinese ships had already touched was reorganized — by Europe — for the next five centuries. The history of shipbuilding is the history of who decided to build large ships, and what they chose to do with them.