The Sea and Civilization: A Maritime History of the World

Overview

A monumental retelling of world history through the lens of the sea—revealing in breathtaking depth how people first came into contact with one another by ocean and river, lake and stream, and how goods, languages, religions, and entire cultures spread across and along the world’s waterways, bringing together civilizations and defining what makes us most human. The Sea and Civilization is a mesmerizing, rhapsodic narrative of maritime enterprise, from the origins of long-distance migration to the great seafaring cultures of antiquity; from Song Dynasty human-powered paddle-boats to aircraft carriers and container ships. Lincoln Paine takes the reader on an intellectual adventure casting the world in a new light, in which the sea reigns supreme. Above all, Paine makes clear how the rise and fall of civilizations can be linked to the sea. An accomplishment of both great sweep and illuminating detail, The Sea and Civilization is a stunning work of history.

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9781101970355
Publisher:	Knopf Doubleday Publishing Group
Publication date:	10/27/2015
Format:	Paperback
Pages:	800
Sales rank:	310,705

About the Author

Lincoln Paine is the author of five books and more than fifty articles, reviews, and lectures on various aspects of maritime history. He lives in Portland, Maine, with his wife, Allison.

An award-winning audio engineer for over forty years, Tom Perkins has expanded his skills to narrating and has more than sixty titles to his credit. He learned by working with the world's best voice talent during his career, and he continues to engineer a variety of projects.

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Introduction
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Excerpted from "The Sea and Civilization"
by .
Copyright © 2015 Lincoln Paine.
Excerpted by permission of Knopf Doubleday Publishing Group.
All rights reserved. No part of this excerpt may be reproduced or reprinted without permission in writing from the publisher.
Excerpts are provided by Dial-A-Book Inc. solely for the personal use of visitors to this web site.

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Table of Contents

Illustrations xi

Maps xv

Acknowledgments xxxiii

A Note on Measures xxxvi

Introduction 3

1 Taking to the Water 11

2 The River and Seas of Ancient Egypt 36

3 Bronze Age Seafaring 57

4 Phoenicians, Greeks, and the Mediterranean 79

5 Carthage, Rome, and the Mediterranean 107

6 Chasing the Monsoons 137

7 Continent and Archipelagoes in the East 167

8 The Christian and Muslim Mediterranean 198

9 Northern Europe Through the Viking Age 229

10 The Silk Road of the Seas 262

11 China Looks Seaward 291

12 The Medieval Mediterranean and Europe 316

13 The Golden Age of Maritime Asia 346

14 The World Encompassed 376

15 The Birth of Global Trade 406

16 State and Sea in the Age of European Expansion 440

17 Northern Europe Ascendant 473

18 "Annihilation of Space and Time" 508

19 Naval Power in Steam and Steel 546

20 The Maritime World Since the 1950s 582

Notes 601

Bibliography 661

Index 707

Editorial Reviews

★ 09/09/2013
Even though the Earth’s surface is 70% water, historical narratives are usually land-centered. Paine (Ships of the World) shifts emphasis from land to water in order to correct this imbalance, an approach that takes the reader through history via the seas. He devises a chronological spiral around the world, starting with a recounting of ancient times, before covering the same areas in medieval times, and so on up to the modern era. Paine’s highly detailed work encompasses a wide array of topics, from trade and the influence of the sea on warfare and political coalitions, to ship building techniques through the ages, to piracy and slavery. Of particular interest are the intricate alliances and shifting loyalties of ancient Mediterranean cultures, the outsized role of the relatively tiny Spice Islands, the impact the Vikings had on cultural exchange across coastal Europe, and the influence of religion on areas as diverse as trade and maritime law. Readers expecting a naval history will receive much more: a thorough history of the people, the ports, and the cultural activity taking place on the water. Paine has compiled an invaluable resource for salty dogs and land-lubbers alike. Photos, illus., & maps. Agent: John Wright, John Wright Literary Agency. (Nov.)

Publishers Weekly

"Paine's highly detailed work encompasses a wide array of topics, from trade and the influence of the sea on warfare and political coalitions, to ship building techniques through the ages, to piracy and slavery. . . . Paine has compiled an invaluable resource for salty dogs and land-lubbers alike."—Publishers Weekly Starred Review

From the Publisher

2013-09-15
A sprawling, readable history of the world from the sailor's point of view--and not just on the oceans of the world, but also its lakes and rivers. Maine-based maritime historian Paine (Down East: A Maritime History of Maine, 2000, etc.) takes a broad view of his subject, beginning in deepest antiquity: "It is impossible to know who first set themselves adrift in saltwater or fresh and for what reason, but once launched our ancestors never looked back." Indeed, the Americas might have been first peopled by migrants traveling not via a land bridge but by boat, while the shipbuilding industry as such is at least 4,000 years old, represented by a site on the Strait of Hormuz at which ship hulls were found made of reeds, mats and animal skins "coated with a bitumen amalgam." Many of the great historical maritime episodes figure in Paine's pages, from Salamis to the Columbian crossings--including the fourth, after which, to Columbus' shame, he was stripped of titles and land, "bitter that licenses were now being issued to others to sail to Hispaniola." The author does a fine job of educing a-ha moments from his material, as when he notes the importance of river and sea travel in America's westward expansion and accounts for the lopsided British victory at Trafalgar by noting that the Royal Navy "had cultivated a psychological advantage based on a belief that the point of battle was to attack." Fittingly, recurrent themes include the sea as a medium for spreading not just trade, but also ideology, as with the Muslim conquest of much of the Mediterranean during the Middle Ages and subsequent spread of Islam. With so large and diffuse a book, Paine skips over a few things and heavily condenses others; his account of the rise of containerization, which has had so profound an effect on international trade, merits far more than the few pages allowed for it. A lucid, well-written survey that covers a lot of ground--well, of fathoms.

Kirkus Reviews

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