Jim is the author, co-author or editor of over 35 books as well as numerous articles and archaeological reports covering a wide range of subjects related to the histories of shipwrecks.

Listed below are his most recent books, as well as other selected titles.

The Great Museum of the Sea

An immersive dive into the meaning and mystique of shipwrecks

The sea is the largest museum on earth, with more than a million lost ships resting in its depths. Those shipwrecks date back thousands of years, some from civilizations long vanished, others from more recent history. Some are famous, others obscure and unremembered but each has a story to tell.

In The Great Museum of the Sea, archaeologist, museum director, television host, journalist, and award-winning author James Delgado takes the reader on a personal tour of the world’s wrecks, including many of the more than a hundred lost ships he has personally discovered and investigated, including Titanic, USS Arizona, and the slave ship Clotilda. The Great Museum of the Sea vividly explains how and why ships experience catastrophe at sea, and why their remains have captured our imagination for millennia.

Shipwrecks engage us in many ways–we treat them as tombs, but also recover them for museums and memorials, and salvage them for treasure. Authoritative and informed by decades of shipwreck expeditions, Delgado’s account offers an insider’s perspective, taking the reader into the deep and behind the scenes.

Published by Oxford University Press, July 2025. Purchase online.

Clotilda: The History and Archaeology of the Last Slave Ship

Documents the maritime historical research and archaeological fieldwork used to identify the wreck of the notorious schooner Clotilda

Clotilda: The History and Archaeology of the Last Slave Ship is the first definitive work to examine the maritime historical and archaeological record of one of the most infamous ships in American history. Clotilda was owned by Alabama businessman Timothy Meaher, who, on a dare, equipped it to carry captured Africans from what is now Benin and bring them to Alabama in 1860—some fifty years after the import of captives to be enslaved was banned. To hide the evidence, Clotilda was set afire and sunk.

Clotilda: The History and Archaeology of the Last Slave Ship serves as a nautical biography of the ship as well. After reviewing the maritime trade in and out of Mobile Bay, this account places Clotilda within the larger landscape of American and Gulf of Mexico schooners and chronicles its career before being used as a slave ship. All of its voyages had a link to slavery, and one may have been another smuggling voyage in violation of federal law. The authors have also painstakingly reconstructed Clotilda’s likely appearance and characteristics.

Co-authors: Deborah E. Marx, Kyle Lent, Joseph Grinnan and Alexander DeCaro. Published by University of Alabama Press, March 2023. Purchase online.

Jim has been recognized several times for his meticulously-researched historical and insightful non-fiction books that both scholars and the public have enjoyed reading across the decades.

Book awards include:

James Deetz Award for War At Sea: A Shipwrecked History from Antiquity to the Twentieth Century, from the Society of Historical Archaeology, 2021
John Lyman Book Award (Honorable Mention) for Misadventures of a Civil War Submarine: Iron, Guns, and Pearls, 2012.
Outstanding Academic Title for Nuclear Dawn: The Atomic Bomb From the Manhattan Project to the Cold War by Choice, the Current Review for Academic Libraries, 2011.
James Deetz Award for Khubilai Khan’s Lost Fleet: In Search of a Legendary Armada, from the Society of Historical Archaeology, 2011.
City of Vancouver Book Prize for Best Book Published on the City of Vancouver, for Waterfront: The Illustrated Maritime Story of Greater Vancouver, 2006.
Bill Duthie Bookseller’s Choice Award for Best Book Published in British Columbia, for Waterfront: The Illustrated Maritime Story of Greater Vancouver, BC Book Prizes, 2006.
Naval History’s 2003 Author of the Year
John Lyman Book Award, for Across the Top of The World: The Quest for the Northwest Passage, from North American Society for Oceanic History, 1999.

Selected Titles

The Curse of the Somers

The Curse of the Somers is a thorough recreation of this classic tale, told with the help of recently uncovered evidence. Written by a maritime historian and archaeologist who helped identify the long-lost wreck and subsequently studied its sunken remains, this is a timeless tale of life and death at sea. James P. Delgado re-examines the circumstances, drawing from a rich historical record and from the investigation of the ship’s sunken remains. What surfaces is an all-too-human tale that resonates and chills across the centuries.

Published by Oxford University Press, November 2022. Purchase online.

The Lost Submarines of Pearl Harbor: The Rediscovery and Archaeology of Japan’s Top-Secret Midget Submarines of World War II

In the pre-dawn darkness of December 7, 1941, five Imperial Japanese Navy submarines surfaced off the coast of Oahu. Secured to the decks of these vessels were secret weapons to be deployed for the first time in modern warfare: two-man midget submarines, intended to enter Pearl Harbor without being detected and torpedo the US Navy battleships lying at anchor there. Purchase online.

The Maritime Landscape of the Isthmus of Panama

For over 500 years, the Isthmus of Panamá has been dominated by its relationship to the sea and the rivers that feed it. In this seminal work, the authors explore the maritime history of the isthmus through its many stages: from its prehistoric period through Spanish colonialism to the building of the canal and its function as a route for modern-day maritime traffic. Purchase online.

Misadventures of a Civil War Submarine, Irons, Guns, and Pearls

Misadventures of a Civil War Submarine: Iron, Guns, and Pearls (Ed Rachal Foundation Nautical Archaeology Series)

John Lyman Book Award (Honorable Mention) 2012.

In Misadventures of a Civil War Submarine, Delgado chronicles the confluence of technological advancement, entrepreneurial aspiration, American capitalist ambition, and ignorance of the physiological effects of deep diving. As he details the layers of knowledge uncovered by his work both in archival sources and in the field excavation of Kroehl’s ill-fated vessel, Delgado weaves the tangled threads of history into a compelling narrative. This finely crafted saga will fascinate and inform professional archaeologists and researchers, naval historians, students and aficionados of maritime exploration, and interested general readers. Purchase online.

Gold Rush Port: The Maritime Archaeology of San Francisco’s Waterfront

Drawing on excavations in buried ships and collapsed buildings from this period, James P. Delgado re-creates San Francisco’s unique maritime landscape, shedding new light on the city’s remarkable rise from a small village to a boom town of thousands in the three short years from 1848 to 1851. Purchase online.

Read Jim’s entry: Digging Up the Gold Rush City on the University of California Press’ website.

Across the Top of the World: The Quest for the Northwest Passage

Winner of the John Lyman Book Award, 1999.

After Columbus found his voyage to Asia unexpectedly blocked by the New World, one driving goal of explorers was to find a way around it. Arctic archeologist James Delgado relates these tales–the voyages of the Norsemen, Henry Hudson, Sir John Franklin, and others–with a rare combination of verve, historical context, and lots of illustrations. Purchase online.

Khubilai Khan’s Lost Fleet: In Search of a Legendary Armada

Winner of the 2011 Deetz Award.

“Delgado, as you may know, is a marine archaeologist and the current president of the Institute of Nautical Archaeology in Texas. Among many other things, he’s an entertaining story-teller, and in this new book he regales us with the tale of the fleet that Khubilai Khan sent to invade Japan. It’s a book about hubris, a divine wind, and a terrible defeat, and it’s packed with fascinating details. I particularly relished Delgado’s account of how a team of Japanese archaeologists pieced together the fate of the invasion force.” Purchase online.

Recommended by author Bruce L Batten. Read his review on Shepherd.com.

Arctic Workhorse: The RCMP Schooner St. Roch

Dodging between the Arctic floes, almost crushed several times, the little RCMP vessel St. Roch was the first ship to conquer the hazardous Northwest Passage from west to east. This book is a “biography” of St. Roch, from her construction in Vancouver in 1928, through her working life and famous voyages, to her resting place at the Vancouver Maritime Museum. Purchase online.

Adventures of a Sea Hunter: In Search of Famous Shipwrecks

Leading archaeologist and consummate storyteller James Delgado takes readers on a rollicking deep-sea dive into his highly unusual life’s work: locating and exploring the world’s most famous shipwrecks. More than a million ships have gone lost or missing in the seas, and going down in “the museum of the deep” to find famous shipwrecks is a risky yet profitable business, sometimes challenging the limits of human endurance. Delgado, a marine archeologist and a member of the Sea Hunter TV retrieval team, presents a chronicle of distinguished wreckage, addressing the wrecks’ histories, the scope of the undersea explorations to locate them, the joy of discovery and the thrill of bringing artifacts to the surface. Purchase online.

Encyclopedia of Underwater and Maritime Archaeology

This encyclopedia is the first comprehensive reference book on the discovery and recovery of underwater archaeological remains around the world and across time. Written by archaeologists and other scientists who have made the discoveries, it offers a wealth of authoritative and accessible information on shipwrecks, drowned cities, ritual deposits, and other relics of our submerged past. Purchase online.

Lost Warships: An Archaeological Tour of War at Sea

From the defeat of Antony and Cleopatra at Actium to the 1946 nuclear detonations at Bikini Atoll, Lost Warships places shipwrecks in a broad historical, often-tragic narrative of warfare at sea. Drawing on the author’s knowledge as an underwater archaeologist, naval historian, and maritime museum director as well as historical accounts, paintings, contemporary documents, photographs, and maps, the book presents a comprehensive, graphically appealing overview of milestones in marine warfare that changed the course of world history. Sidebars featuring histories of specific battles, ships, relics, and shipwrecks further illustrate and enhance this riveting tale. Purchase online.

Nuclear Dawn: The Atomic Bomb from the Manhattan Project to the Cold War

Winner of the Choice Award for Outstanding Academic Title 2010.

Delgado tells the breathtaking story of the original Manhattan Project and its aftermath. While most previous authors have focused on either the scientific or the social history of the events, Delgado’s is the first to spotlight the military and political phases of the atom bomb. In crisp prose, he covers the background of the bomb in the labs in Europe, Britain, and America, but the story picks up speed after the bombing of Pearl Harbor and the declaration of war by America. James Delgado’s new book fills a very important gap in our understanding of the enormous changes that the United States military underwent during WWII. Purchase online.

Shipwrecks from the Westward Movement (Watts Library: Shipwrecks)

Excerpt: The first Europeans who settled in North America came by sea. They also spread across the continent on water. This westward movement left wrecked canoes, riverboats, and ships. Today, archaeologists are rediscovering these wrecks on the bottom of the sea or in lakes and rivers. Purchase online.

The USS Arizona

Jasper, Delgado and Adams trace the history of Arizona, from her launching in 1915, through her extensive cruises in the Atlantic and Pacific, to the chaos after Japanese airplanes sounded the death knell of America’s battleship fleet. Purchase online.

Waterfront: The Illustrated Maritime Story of Greater Vancouver

Co-winner of the 2006 City of Vancouver Book Award and winner of the 2006 Bill Duthie BC Booksellers’ Choice Award.

Waterfront is a magnificently illustrated, authoritative, and lively tour of the dynamic ebb and flow between the water, the surrounding land and, above all, the people who strove and dreamed along the waterfront. Many dramatic stories abound along its waterfront—of this place, its people, ships, and the events that shaped a city, a region, and a nation: prehistoric mariners who ventured out of the Arctic wastes after the last great ice age, European explorers who sought a fabled passage to the riches of the Orient, enterprising lumberman, railway tycoons, shipping magnates, stevedores, ship captains, immigrants, scoundrels and heroes, hardworking men and women. Their tales play out in this book, entwining the story of the birth and growth of cities, ports, industries, and companies. Purchase online.

Native American Shipwrecks

Examines archaeological excavations of the watercraft of ancient Native Americans and what the findings tell us about the daily life and culture of people who lived thousands of years ago. Purchase online.

Books