The Model Ship: Her Role in History

Votive offering, engineering test bed, solace in captivity, education, or just plain enjoyment: ship models have a long and varied history and are as strong today as ever. Ironically, despite my lifelong interest in aeroplanes, the first Airfix kit I ever built as a boy was a ship (the Golden Hind as I recall: it arrived in my local shop a few weeks before the first Spitfire model). All aspects, except plastic kits which have just a couple of passing mentions, are covered in this competent survey of a long and honourable history of modelmaking.

It is a narrative history,...