Seabourn Cruise: China, Japan, Korea

Andy will be a Special Interest Conversationalist for Seabourn Sojourn‘s three week trip to China, Japan and Korea.

Proposed conversations include:

The Ocean Cruises of Admiral Zheng He and China’s Navy Today

Zheng He’s seven cruises at the head of enormous Chinese treasure and tribute fleets to East Africa, the Red Sea, and the Persian Gulf during the early years of the Ming Dynasty are a brilliant, little-known highlight of the maritime history of Asia.  Modern China’s recent turn toward the sea and the dynamic growth of its maritime claims and navy is a distant echo of Zheng’s superb  and fascinating expeditions. 

Maritime Choke Points and Strategic Waters

Beginning with the Age of Sail, the geography of the oceans, as well as their winds and currents, became important to governments and their navies.  The Strait of Hormuz and the Malacca Strait are today the best known of these choke points, but other such places have been flash points throughout history.

Adak-The Rescue of Alfa Foxtrot 586

The fifteen men of ​U.S. ​Navy AF 586 went down in their stricken plane off Kamchatka in late October 1978, 90 minutes after a propeller failure ended their sensitive mission.  Ten lived through the ordeal and were rescued by Soviet fishermen to be returned home. Okinawa was then (and remains today) the center node of U.S. navy surveillance operations in the western Pacific.

Why We Fought: Propaganda and World War II: Part I

Why We Fought: Propaganda and World War II: Part II

These two conversations will skim the history of the World War II in both oceans, focusing on the Pacific, through the fascinating documentary and animated movies Frank Capra and the Disney Studios released during wartime to explain to Americans and their allies the great stakes in the conflict.

Disease in History

Until the age of modern medicine, lethal epidemics and fatal disease shaped human history as much—arguably more—than did the acts of great men (and women), and the events of politics and wars.  Learn how plague, influenza, yellow fever, and small pox (as well as the “great pox,” syphilis), and especially cholera, powerfully changed the direction of the march of time.

Major Themes in History

A brief introduction to history’s drivers, an illustrated inventory of some factors that have broadly shaped the story of humankind for the past several millennia, and one answer to the question, “what’s knowledge of history good for in the digital age?”