BOOK REVIEW | Chian Shipping – The Merchant Marine of Chios Through the Ages

Your reviewer was presented with this delightful and very informative little book at the conclusion of his recent tour of the wonderful maritime museum in Chios Town, the capital of the famous Aegean island of Chios.

Chios is justifiably noted as the home island of the majority of Greece’s best known and most important ship owners. Almost all the big shipping names originated there. Chios has a proud shipping tradition going back about seven millennia to Neolithic times. Its proximity (three nautical miles) to the Turkish or Asia-Minor coast, has placed it front and centre on one of the world’s busiest waterways since ancient times. It is no wonder that the island has always bred ship owners.

In just 43 pages each in both Greek and English, the author, a well known Chian and noted Greek maritime historian, gives a brief but comprehensive and very readable account of his island’s illustrious maritime history.

(By Matheos D Los)

Available from the Chios Maritime Museum, Chios, Greece.

Web: www.chiosnauticalmuseum.gr.


Neil Baird

Co-founder and former Editor-in-Chief of Baird Maritime and Work Boat World magazine, Neil has travelled the length and breadth of this planet in over 40 years in the business. He knows the global work boat industry better than anyone.