The Conquest of the Ocean: The Illustrated History of Seafaring by Brian Lavery

I know absolutely nothing about ships or sailing, and this book was entertaining, informative, well illustrated and nice to hold.  Lavery works chronologically through the history of sailing from the premodern times right up to the present day.

The book is divided into 5 sections:
The First Ocean Sailors to 1850 (Arabs, Vikings, Polynesians, Chinese, Pilgrims, Greeks and Romans);
The Age of Exploration 1450-1600 (European journeys to the Americas, first cirumnavigation of the Earth, Drake, Columbus, Amerigo and medieval ships);
The Age of Empire 1600-1815 (Colonialism, piracy, the slave trade, Cook, Trafalgar and whaling);
Steam and Emigration 1815-1915 (early steamships, American emigration, Chinese and Japanese trade, Clipper ships, submarines, liners and battleships);
The Wars on the Oceans 1914-1945 (World War I and World War II, Jutland, Midway, Atlantic, D-Day, U-boats)
The Global Ocean 1945-present (containers, Cuban Missile crisis, birth of oceanography, Falklands, ocean racing, oil spills, modern piracy)

Each section is illustrated with excellent maps showing the information such as main trade routes, winds, currents, shipwrecks, iceberg zones and battles although sometimes the colours are a hard to distinguish.  There are drawings of the ships spoken about in the text, and usefully page numbers given for cross references.  The maps are mostly accurate, although according to the Battle of the Atlantic one The Hood was sunk nearer Greenland than Scapa Flow!  However, in general the book is generously illustrated, ephermera, paintings, photographs, quotations and facts on almost every page that bring the subject alive.