WILLIAMS, Glyn 1932-

(Glyndwr Williams)

PERSONAL:

Born 1932.

ADDRESSES:

Agent—c/o Author Mail, Yale University Press, P.O. Box 209040, New Haven, CT 06520-9040.

CAREER:

Historian and writer. Queen Mary & West-field College, University of London, London, England, emeritus professor.

MEMBER:

Hakluyt Society (vice president, 2003-04).

AWARDS, HONORS:

The Atlas of North American Exploration: From the Norse Voyages to the Race to the Pole was named one of the best reference sources in 1992 by Library Journal. Honorary degrees from Memorial University of Newfoundland and Latrobe University, Australia.

WRITINGS:

(With John Ramsden) Ruling Britannia: A Political History of Britain, 1688-1988, Longman (New York, NY), 1990.

The Prize of All the Oceans: The Triumph and Tragedy of Anson's Voyage round the World, HarperCollins (London, England), 1999, published as The Prize of All the Oceans: The Dramatic True Story of Commodore Anson's Voyage round the World and How He Seized the Spanish Treasure Galleon, Viking (New York, NY), 2000.

Voyages of Delusion: The Northwest Passage in the Age of Reason, Yale University Press (New Haven, CT), 2003.

AS GLYNDWR WILLIAMS

The British Search for the Northwest Passage in the Eighteenth Century, Longmans (London, England), 1962.

The Expansion of Europe in the Eighteenth Century: Overseas Rivalry, Discovery, and Exploitation, Blandford (London, England), 1966.

(With P. J. Marshall) The Great Map of Mankind: Perceptions of New Worlds in the Age of Enlightenment, Harvard University Press (Cambridge, MA), 1982.

(With William Goetzmann) The Atlas of North American Exploration: From the Norse Voyages to the Race to the Pole (cartographic material), Prentice Hall General Reference (New York, NY), 1992.

The Great South Sea: English Voyages and Encounters, 1570-1750, Yale University Press (New Haven, CT), 1997.

EDITOR; AS GLYNDWR WILLIAMS

Documents Relating to Anson's Voyage round the World, 1740-1744. Navy Records Society (London, England), 1967.

Andrew Graham's Observations on Hudson's Bay, 1767-91, Hudson's Bay Record Society (London, England), 1969.

Peter Skene Ogden's Snake Country Journals, 1827-28 and 1828-29, introduction and notes by David E. Miller and David H. Miller, Hudson's Bay Record Society (London, England), 1971.

(With John E. Flint) Perspectives of Empire: Essays Presented to Gerald S. Graham, Barnes & Noble Books (New York, NY), 1973.

London Correspondence Inward from Sir George Simpson, 1841-42, introduction by John S. Galbraith, Hudson's Bay Record Society (London, England), 1973.

A Voyage round the World in the Years MDCCXL, I, II, III, IV, by George Anson, Oxford University Press (New York, NY), 1974.

Hudson's Bay Miscellany, 1670-1870, Hudson's Bay Record Society (Winnipeg, Manitoba, Canada), 1975.

(With Peter Marshall) The British Atlantic Empire before the American Revolution, Cass (Totowa, NJ), 1980.

(With Sarah Palmer) Charted and Uncharted Waters: Proceedings of a Conference on the Study of British Maritime History, 8-11 September 1981, Queen Mary College, London, National Maritime Museum in association with the Department of History, Queen Mary College, University of London (London, England), 1982.

(With Alan Frost) Terra Australis to Australia, Oxford University Press in association with the Australian Academy of the Humanities (Melbourne, Australia), 1988.

(With William Barr) Voyages to Hudson Bay in Search of a Northwest Passage, 1741-1747, Volume 1: The Voyage of Christopher Middleton, 1741-1742, Volume 2: The Voyage of William Moore and Francis Smith, 1746-1747, Hakluyt Society (London, England), 1994-95.

Captain Cook's Voyages: 1768-1779, Folio Society (London, England), 1997.

SIDELIGHTS:

A longtime history professor at Queen Mary and Westfield College of the University of London, Glyn Williams specializes in Canadian and Newfoundland history. He has also studied and written about British sea voyages and exploration since the early 1960s. Primarily scholarly and academic in nature, his books are filled with a wealth of information about the sea, its exploration, and eighteenth-century history. His 1992 book, The Atlas of North American Exploration: From the Norse Voyages to the Race to the Pole, which he wrote with William H. Goetzmann, was named one of the best reference sources of 1992 by Library Journal. Writing in Library Journal, reviewers Brian E. Coutts and John B. Richard noted that the book was "painstakingly researched, authoritatively written, and generously illustrated and printed."

In his book The Great South Sea: English Voyages and Encounters, 1570-1750, Williams provides a history of two centuries of South Sea adventures and explorations. Not only does he discuss expeditions conducted by the British navy and private expeditions but also the many excursions by English buccaneers, more commonly known as pirates. Although difficult and dangerous undertakings, these voyages were based primarily on greed and the search for gold. Even those voyages sanctioned by the British government—from Sir Francis Drake to English naval commander George Anson—were marked by raids and looting in such places as South America. Nevertheless, Williams points out that maritime intelligence was also an important result of these voyages and helped Britain in its ongoing battle with Spain over domination of the seas. "In describing these voyages, Williams does a remarkable job of pulling together the disparate sources and making sense of difficult texts," noted Robert C. Ritchie in the American Historical Review. Writing in London's Sunday Times, reviewer Alan Judd noted, "Williams's book is more academic history than adventure (an excellent source for anyone else writing of the period), and many readers are likely to find it most appealing when it deals with the big, magical themes that colour men's minds almost as much now as then. The accounts of Drake's and Anson's voyages, brief though they are, are stirring and awesome."

Williams provides a more in-depth look at Anson's voyage in The Prize of All the Oceans: The Dramatic True Story of Commodore Anson's Voyage round the World and How He Seized the Spanish Treasure Galleon. In September, 1740, archrivals England and Spain were once again at war. The British Anson was given the mission of sailing to the Pacific coasts of Spanish America and capturing the Spanish galleons, or treasure fleet, sailing from Acapulco to Manila. The story of the mission, as pointed out by reviewer Marcus Rediker in Albion, was one "full of disaster, suffering, courage, wealth, and glory." Commanding a fleet equipped with six warships and two transports manned by 1,900 men, Anson did eventually seize a Spanish galleon and its sizable treasure and return home to glory and fame. However, he lost nearly 1,400 men to diseases such as scurvy and to shipwrecks as they tried to round Cape Horn. He lost all of his ships except for his flagship, the Centurion, and two others that turned back earlier in the expedition, which lasted four years overall.

"The dramatic tale has found a distinguished chronicler in Glyn Williams," noted Rediker in Albion. The reviewer also noted, "Williams demonstrates a sure grasp of the many contexts and subtleties of his subject, and he consistently makes sound, insightful judgments." Rediker also pointed out that some scholars may wish that Williams had spent more time discussing Anson's encounters with Native Americans and the Chinese, as well as the plight and personalities of the common sailors who suffered so much. A Publishers Weekly contributor felt that Williams "was more interested in chronicling events than in telling a great story, and he often bogs down the plot while resolving countless discrepancies in the various survivors' stories." Writing in the Times Literary Supplement, reviewer N. A. M. Rodger commented that "the hasty reader might not appreciate the fruits of many years of scholarship which underlie this admirable retelling of a tragic and heroic tale." Rodger also commented, "Williams's narrative brings out all the drama of the story. What is striking is how much more he brings out than before. At every point his researches have uncovered new material."

Another one of Williams's primary areas of historical interest has been the British search for the northwest passage, a quest that began in the 1740s. The British and other countries latched onto the idea that a navigable northwest passage must exist from the western coast of the Hudson Bay in New York to the Pacific Ocean on the other side of America. Williams wrote his first book on the topic, titled The British Search for the Northwest Passage in the Eighteenth Century, in 1962 and went on to edit with William Barr the two-volume Voyages to Hudson Bay in Search of a Northwest Passage, 1741-1747. Williams also wrote the 2003 book Voyages of Delusion: The Northwest Passage in the Age of Reason.

In Voyages of Delusion, Williams explores how so many people living in the eighteenth-century Age of Reason, which was typified by the rational scientific approach, came to believe in the geographical myth of a northwest passage from the Hudson Bay. This belief persisted despite mounting geographical evidence and other reports that such a passage did not exist. In telling the story, Williams also delves into the contrasts between the armchair navigators whose imaginations got the better of them as they sought wealth and power and the hands-on sailors and navigators who placed their lives on the line as they set out to prove or disprove the theory. Williams details many of the self-glorifying yet failed attempts to find the passage, including those by Spain and Russia. He also explains how the efforts were bolstered by false reports from earlier explorers that turned out to be nothing but literary invention and by the potential financial and strategic advantages the finding of a northwest passage would provide. Writing in Publishers Weekly, a reviewer commented, "Williams may be too scholarly for general readers, but students of maritime exploration and eighteenth-century British politics will find this work engrossing, especially the detailed notes on sources." Times Higher Education Supplement contributor Felix Driver noted, "The book tells a series of absorbing tales, from the obscure and pathetic through to the grandiose and definitive."

BIOGRAPHICAL AND CRITICAL SOURCES:

PERIODICALS

Albion, spring, 2002, Marcus Rediker, review of The Prize of All the Oceans: The Dramatic True Story of Commodore Anson's Voyage round the World and How He Seized the Spanish Treasure Galleon, p. 110.

American Historical Review, June, 1999, Robert C. Ritchie, review of The Great South Sea: English Voyages and Encounters, 1570-1750, p. 991.

Booklist, April 1, 2003, George Cohen, review of Voyages of Delusion: The Quest for the Northwest Passage in the Age of Reason, p. 1372; October 15, 2000, Roland Green, review of The Prize of All the Oceans, p. 412.

Canadian Historical Review, June, 1997, I. S. MacLaren, review of Voyages to Hudson Bay in Search of a Northwest Passage, 1741-1747, Volume 2: The Voyage of William Moore and Francis Smith, 1746-1747, p. 331.

English Historical Review, April, 1999, Colin Newbury, review of The Great South Sea, p. 449.

Geographical Journal, July, 1990, E. M. M. Campbell, review of Terra Australis to Australia, p. 21.

Kliatt, January, 2002, Raymond L. Puffer, review of The Prize of All the Oceans, p. 26.

Library Journal, April 15, 1993, Brian E Coutts and John B. Richard, review of The Atlas of North American Exploration: From the Norse Voyages to the Race to the Pole, p. 60; November 1, 2000, Stanley Itkin, review of The Prize of All the Oceans, p. 112.

Natural History, May, 2003, Laurence A. Marschall, review of Voyages of Delusion, p. 68.

New York Times Book Review, April 13, 2003, Jonathan Dore, review of Voyages of Delusion, p. 23.

Publishers Weekly, March 3, 2003, review of Voyages of Delusion, p. 65; October 9, 2000, review of The Prize of All the Oceans, p. 82.

Spectator, April 13, 2002, Alan Judd, review of Voyages of Delusion, p. 51.

Sunday Times (London, England), November 23, 1997, Alan Judd, review of The Great South Sea.

Times Higher Education Supplement, May 16, 2003, Felix Driver, review of Voyages of Delusion, p. 1589.

Times Literary Supplement (London, England), November 19, 1999, N. A. M. Rodger, review of The Prize of All the Oceans, p. 26.*