Steven Ujifusa

Steven Ujifusa received his A.B. in history from Harvard University and a master’s degree in historic preservation from the University of Pennsylvania. The Wall Street Journal named his first book, A Man and His Ship, one of the best nonfiction titles of 2012.

Steven has given presentations across the country and on the high seas, and has appeared as guest on CBS Sunday Morning and NPR. A recipient of a MacDowell Colony fellowship and the Athenaeum of Philadelphia’s Literary Award, he lives with his wife and son in Philadelphia. Read more about him at www.stevenujifusa.com.

For media appearances, contact Cat Boyd at cat.boyd@simonandschuster.com or (212) 698-7183.

For speaking engagements, contact the Simon & Schuster Speakers Bureau at info@simonspeakers.com or (866) 248-3049.

ADVANCE PRAISE FOR BARONS OF THE SEA

“Full of remarkable characters and incredible stories, Steven Ujifusa’s ‘Barons of the Sea’ is a fascinating, fast-paced history of America’s clipper ship era. Highly recommended.”

-Nathaniel Philbrick, National Book Award-winning author of In the Heart of the Sea and Mayflower

“Barons of the Sea moves as fast as a clipper ship at full sail. With a seemingly effortless command of the shared history of China and the United States in the nineteenth century, Ujifusa takes the reader on a rare and intoxicating journey back in time.”

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-Candice Millard, New York Times bestselling author of River of Doubt: Theodore Roosevelt's Darkest Journey

“As learned as it is entertaining. Ujifusa has brought the golden age of American maritime commerce to vivid life. Extraordinary people and the wondrous clipper ships they built fill its pages with both great stories and deep insight into what makes humans of any age tick.”

-John Steele Gordon, author of An Empire of Wealth and The Great Game

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“Barons of the Sea captures both the majesty of clipper ships and the heart of the bold men who wanted to see them go faster and carry more. This story of ambition, innovation, and technology in the age of swift-sailing merchant ships will keep you enthralled.”

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-Dean King, bestselling author of Skeletons on the Zahara

“Barons of the Sea is a riveting, raucous book. If you love the sea, it’s all here: dreams, money, ambition, and competition.”

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-Jay Winik, bestselling author of April 1865 and

Historian-in-Residence at the Council on Foreign Relations

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“This crisply told story of the race to build the fastest ship in the world reads like a thriller, reminiscent of the best of Nathaniel Philbrick’s sea writing. It carries the reader along like a precious cargo on the high seas. I simply could not put it down.”

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-Admiral James Stavridis, Dean of the Fletcher School at Tufts University, Chairman of the U.S. Naval Institute, and former Supreme Allied Commander at NATO

"Historian Samuel Eliot Morison called them 'the noblest of all sailing vessels, and the most beautiful creations of man in America.' But to that select group of merchants and shipmasters who employed the clipper ships in the China trade, they were also the source of vast profits—and sometimes catastrophic losses. In this deeply researched and boldly drawn account of the rise and fall of the clipper ship, Steven Ujifusa sheds dramatic new light, as well, on the lives, aspirations, and moral dilemmas of those daring Americans who traded with China in the opening decades of the nineteenth century."

-Llewellyn Howland III, author of No Ordinary Being: W. Starling Burgess…master of America design

“By casting new light on major players, Steven Ujifusa has illuminated a long-overlooked facet of the clipper era. “

-W.H. Bunting, author of “Live Yankees: The Sewalls and Their Ships” and “Sea Struck”

PRAISE FOR A MAN AND HIS SHIP

"A terrific book! By entertaining, informing and ultimately inspiring, A Man and His Ship transforms its readers into passengers traveling across an ocean and through time. A skilled verbal navigator, Steven Ujifusa has charted an efficient and yet immensely satisfying course through a sea of facts, images and stories.."

-DAVID MACAULAY, best-selling author of Cathedral, Castle, and The Way Things Wor

"Few of man's creations possess even half the romance of the passenger ships that once steamed across the world's oceans, especially the North Atlantic. That is why Steven Ujifusa's "A Man and His Ship" is such a compelling work. It is ostensibly a biography of William Francis Gibbs (1886-1967), who is best known for designing the luxury liner called the United States, launched in 1952. But the book is also, inevitably, a history of the passenger ship, whose great days coincided with Gibbs's lifetime."

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-JOHN STEELE GORDON, author of The Great Game, An Empire of Wealth, and Hamilton's Blessing

"In his debut, Ujifusa harks back to a time when men were men, and transatlantic ships were serious business. Written with passion and thoroughness, this is a love letter to a bygone time and the ships that once ruled the seas."

-PUBLISHER'S WEEKLY (STARRED REVIEW)