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
Pages:	800
Sales rank:	265,395
Product dimensions:	6.60(w) x 9.10(h) x 1.60(d)

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.

www.lincolnpaine.com

Read an Excerpt

Introduction
(Continues…)

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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

Superbly realized. . . . Elegantly written and encyclopedic in scope. [A] forceful reminder that the urge to ‘go down to the sea in ships’ has shaped civilizations and cultures in every period and in every part of the globe.” —The Wall Street Journal

“The Sea and Civilization is, without doubt, the most comprehensive maritime history ever produced. . . . An all-consuming vision oozes from Paine’s book. His passion is to tell the story of the sea. History is seldom written with that kind of passion today.” —The Times (London) 

 “The most enjoyable, the most refreshing, the most stimulating, the most comprehensive, the most discerning, the most insightful, the most up-to-date—in short, the best maritime history of the world.” —Felipe Fernández-Armesto, author of Millennium: A History of the Last Thousand Years

 “Here is a story told with assurance and a refreshing perspective. . . . A bracing journey.” —The Dallas Morning News

A Choice Magazine Outstanding Academic Title Selection, 2014

 “Fascinating and beautifully written. . . . An eloquent vision of how the sea served as a path to the modern world.” —Foreign Affairs

 “Paine is full of such illuminating facts. . . . [He] forestalls any western bias with excellent chapters on Asian expansion. . . . ‘The sea held no promise for slaves, coolies, indentured servants, or the dispossessed,’ Paine reminds us, and while it is ‘fickle and unforgiving, it is a fragile environment susceptible to human depredation on a scale unimaginable to our ancestors.’ And yet, whose heart does not sing out when they see the sea? Our last resort, it still holds its promise and its power.” —New Statesman (London)

“A magnificently sweeping world history that takes us from the people of Oceania and concludes with the container. In contrast to most books on maritime history, the majority of The Sea and Civilization covers the history of the world before Columbus sailed the ocean blue and at least as much of the narrative focuses on Asia as it does on Europe.” —The Telegraph (London)

“An ambitious work. . . . Dense with facts and rich in detail that tells mankind’s story from the perspective of our relation to the seas—as well as lakes, rivers and canals.” —Asian Review of Books 

“Brilliantly realized. . . . we have at last a responsible and persuasive explanation of the inextricable connection between the ocean and world civilization.” —Peter Neill, World Ocean Observatory

“Takes the reader through history via the seas . . . 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

“Paine deftly navigates the complexities of global culture to create an eminently readable account of mankind’s relationship to the sea. Both profound and amusing, this will be a standard source for decades to come.” —Josh Smith, U.S. Merchant Marine Academy, editor of Voyages
  
“The Sea and Civilization presents a fresh look at the global past. Bringing to bear a formidable knowledge of ships and sails, winds and currents, navigation techniques and maritime law, Lincoln Paine offers a lively tour of world history as seen from the waterline. The result is a fascinating account, full of little-known episodes and novel insights. A major contribution.”  —Kären Wigen, Stanford University, author of A Malleable Map

"Paine's a lyrical stylist, and the breadth of his historical vision is extraordinary." —David Mitchell, GQ

From the Publisher

★ 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

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