Barons of the Sea by Steven Ujifusa

7.5 out of 10

Designed for speed, clipper ships are long and narrow with many sails.  In the first half of the 1800s, American merchants built a lot of them and quickly traversed the world to exchange new goods in growing markets.  Long voyages required traveling around Cape Horn or the Cape of Good Hope. In addition to cargo, massive amounts of immigrants began flooding onto American shores.  Irish to Boston and Chinese to San Francisco, for example.  Some speculators lost on their gambles.  But others, like a few families in New York and Baltimore, became dynastically rich.  Due to the US Civil War, shipyards were used for battleships, ports were blockaded, private fleets were sunk or sold to the British.  And after the war, investment turned toward steamships and railroads, marking the end of the clipper era.