Maritime Books

What may seem like an arcane subject often reveals itself to be highly policy-relevant

What caused the wave of globalisation before 1914? Was it declining maritime transport costs, migration, international capital flows, trade policies or something else?

The way navies are administered has a much larger impact on history than is generally understood

Is it possible to understand maritime shipping without understanding marine insurance?

A few decades ago, Western Europe decided that shipbuilding was not a strategic industry and instead started to focus support on maritime shipping. Smart choice?

On the global ties that grew tighter, evident in material culture, consumer habits and aesthetic practices

“There is unlikely ever to be a point when a naval perspective on British history will be unnecessary or irrelevant.”

Contemporary discussions on shipping: too much on daily spot rates, far too little on epics and counter-epics of empire

Essential reading

Empires do not exist without ideologies and the ideologists that justify them

Lots of great insights in this book

Interesting and important; a classic

Excellent

The course of maritime transport: essentially determined by its friends or enemies?

The flag of a ship often bears no relation to the nationality of the ship owner or operator. How did we end up in that situation? This book gives some compelling answers.

Nice collection of smart pieces and case studies

Fascinating study

A classic, still highly readable

“The desire to move away from all macro history and synthetic work runs at times counter to the desire to move social sciences towards more global and less Eurocentric accounts.” This is a great effort of a non-Eurocentric version of international history and world politics

“It is my intention to write a History of Merchant Shipping; I am not aware that there exists any work of the kind contemplated.”