Read The Sea and Civilization: A Maritime History of the World Online
Authors: Lincoln Paine
Tags: #History, #Military, #Naval, #Oceania, #Transportation, #Ships & Shipbuilding
As was true of Portugal in the sixteenth century, the U.S. fleet exists to project power and safeguard trade, not to fight fleets of comparable capabilities because there are none. With eleven aircraft carriers—as many as the rest of the world’s navies combined—and a budget request for 2012 of $176 billion, nearly twice the budget of the world’s second largest
military
(navy, army, and air force) establishment—the United States Navy is almost incalculably larger and more powerful than any other in the world. Yet for all its seagoing assets, in recent years it has proven stunningly ineffective in exercising the sort of force historically associated with navies, even something as basic as eradicating piracy. This is due partly to the composition of the United States Navy, which is ill-suited to such assignments, and partly because of changes in international law. The post–
Cold War world is not beset by the sort of bilateral military tensions between nation-states with global aspirations like those characteristic of the previous 350 years. Working within a new framework of multilateral maritime agreements respecting the environment, safety, and the rights and responsibilities of sovereign nations—a regime that reflects a growing consensus that the sea is a global commons—even superpowers like the United States cannot preserve security save by shared responsibility.
Collaboration within a framework of international law is actively supported
by many countries with navies smaller than that of the United States, but this is not a recasting of the debate between Mahan’s “overbearing power on the sea” and the
Jeune Ecole’s “strategy of the weak,” for it goes beyond the use of navies in traditional conflict. One of the clearest affirmations of this view was voiced by then chief of naval operations Admiral
Michael Mullen. “
As we combine our advantages,” he told an
International Seapower Symposium in 2005, “I envision a 1,000-ship Navy—a fleet-in-being, if you will, made up of the best capabilities of all freedom-loving navies of the world.… This 1,000-ship Navy would integrate the capabilities of the maritime services to create a fully interoperable force—an international city at sea. So this calls for a new—or maybe a not so new but very different—image of sea power.” This sentiment found further expression in a joint strategy document by the U.S. Navy, Coast Guard, and Marines, which focuses on the “
global system comprised of interdependent networks of trade, finance, information, law, people and governance” that are vital to the national interest.
That the material composition of the United States Navy resembles, and will for some time, the fleets of a previous age reflects in part the simple fact that the lifespan of naval ships—and naval doctrines—runs to decades. Even without the inevitable domestic opposition to letting go of these obvious emblems of military, industrial, and national prowess in favor of a fleet more appropriate to the country’s needs, they will be around for a long time. Whether Mullen’s is the phrase that will launch a thousand ships remains to be seen. So long as the United States possesses a fleet that can project American military power around the world with impunity, it will be difficult to convince other powers that they should not compete with the U.S. Navy as it is now rather than as it might be in the future. Nor is it obvious that the United States would accept a more level playing field. But it behooves the United States and other nations to consider the political and diplomatic feasibility of a multinational “thousand-ship navy,” because the greatest threats at sea—among them smuggling,
piracy, and overfishing—are stateless and criminal rather than political. Regardless of their source, as Mullen put it, the “
challenges are too diverse to tackle alone and require more capability and resources than any single nation can deliver.”
The past half century of world history has been one of incomparable vigor driven by myriad forces, not the least of which has been maritime enterprise in all its forms. If we take economic expansion and mechanical efficiency as the standard, the story offers a straightforward narrative of progress. Over thousands of years, the volume of sea trade grew from nothing to more than 2.6
billion tons per year in 1970. In the four decades since, that figure has more than trebled, to
over eight billion tons, while ships became bigger and faster but immeasurably safer than ever. In the process, maritime enterprise has hastened globalization while it has itself been globalized. Most ships and crews have been rendered all but anonymous, stripped of their national identities by flags of convenience and made invisible by their displacement to the industrial wastelands on the margins of the ports they serve.
Some people claim that such changes have robbed the maritime world of its romance and allure, but for many people experience of the sea never held romance—promise, perhaps, of a better life in a new land, good tidings from abroad, or simple profit. Still, the sea held no promise for slaves,
coolies, indentured servants, or the dispossessed, and across cultures people have reviled maritime commerce for its noxious cargoes of alien people and ideas, deadly plagues, and ruthless enemies from beyond the sea. At the same time, we have come to know that while the sea is fickle and unforgiving, it is a fragile environment susceptible to human depredation on a scale as unimaginable to our ancestors as the ships and other technologies we have created to make it so.
Seafaring is one of humankind’s oldest collective pursuits, the benefits of which are nicely summarized by the Byzantine historian
George Pachymeres:
Sailing is a noble thing, useful beyond all others to mankind. It exports what is superfluous, it provides what is lacking, it makes the impossible possible, it joins together men from different lands, and makes every inhospitable island a part of the mainland, it brings fresh knowledge to those who sail, it refines manners, it brings concord and civilization to men, it consolidates their nature by bringing together all that is most human in them.
The benefits of maritime enterprise are not as evenly distributed as Pachymeres proposes, but the weight of evidence suggests that most people at least tacitly agree with this optimistic assessment. What is new since he wrote eight centuries ago is a global consciousness of the sea and the growing realization that maritime history offers an invaluable perspective on the history of the world and ourselves.
1.
“ancient ships and boats”: Harding, “Organizational Life Cycles,” 7.
2.
“classic age of sail”: The phrase is from the title of a collection of essays edited by John B. Hattendorf,
Maritime History,
vol. 2,
The Eighteenth Century and the Classic Age of Sail
(Malabar, FL: Krieger, 1997).
3.
“the inequality”: Toynbee, “My View of History,” 10, in Manning,
Navigating World History,
41. In the same vein, Nicholas Rodger notes that “Naval history is certainly one of the few historical subjects in which there are authors who still think that success or failure can be explained by references, overt or implied, to the innate superiority of national character” (“Considerations,” 118).
4.
nationalist maritime histories: These include Mookerji,
Indian Shipping
(1912); G. A. Ballard,
Rulers of the Indian Ocean
(London: Duckworth, 1927); Hadi Hasan,
A History of Persian Navigation
(1928); K. M. Panikkar,
India and the Indian Ocean: An Essay on the Influence of Sea Power on Indian History
(London: Allen & Unwin, 1945); Hourani,
Arab Seafaring in the Indian Ocean in Ancient and Early Medieval Times
(1951); and Needham, et al.,
Science and Civilisation in China,
vol. 4, pt. 3,
Civil Engineering and Nautics
(1971).
5.
works examining individual oceans and seas include Neal Ascherson,
Black Sea
(New York: Hill & Wang, 1995); Braudel,
The Mediterranean
; Paul Butel,
The Atlantic
, trans. Iain Hamilton Grant (London: Routledge, 1999); Nigel Calder,
The English Channel
(New York: Viking, 1986); K. N. Chaudhuri,
Trade and Civilization in the Indian Ocean: An Economic History from the Rise of Islam to 1750
(Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1985); Charles H. Cotter,
The Atlantic Ocean
(Glasgow: Brown & Ferguson, 1974); Richard Hall,
Empires of the Monsoon: A History of the Indian Ocean and Its Invaders
(London: HarperCollins, 1996); Peregrine Horden and Nicholas Purcell,
The Corrupting Sea: A Study of Mediterranean History
(London: Blackwell, 2000); Paul Jordan,
North Sea Saga
(New York: Pearson-Longman, 2004); Milo Kearney,
The Indian Ocean in World History
(London: Routledge, 2003); Charles King,
The Black Sea: A History
(New York: Oxford University Press, 2004); Kirby and Hinkkanen,
The Baltic and North Seas;
Matti Klinge,
The Baltic World,
trans. Timothy Binham (Helsinki: Otava, 1995); Predrag Matvejevic,
Mediterranean: A Cultural Landscape
(Berkeley: University of California Press, 1999); Walter A. McDougall,
Let the Sea Make a Noise: A History of the North Pacific from Magellan to MacArthur
(New York: Basic Books, 1993); McPherson,
The Indian Ocean;
Palmer,
The Baltic;
Pearson,
The Indian Ocean;
Pryor,
Geography, Technology and War;
Himanshu Prabha Ray,
Archaeology of Seafaring: The Indian Ocean in the Ancient Period
(New Delhi: Pragati, 1999); Auguste Toussaint,
History of the Indian Ocean
(London: Routledge, 1966); and Villiers,
Monsoon Seas
.
6.
“All sea is sea”: In Jay,
Greek Anthology
, 7.639 (p. 195).
7.
“Do you not see”: Quran 32:31.
8.
“maritime technology”: Diamond,
Guns, Germs, and Steel,
78, and 241, 313, 341–42, 359.
9.
“the story of the processes”: Roberts,
History of the World,
xiv.
10.
“A general naval history”: Rodger, “Considerations,” 128.
1.
Norwegian rock carvings: Ellmers, “Beginning of Boatbuilding in Central Europe,” 11–12.
2.
“Who the devil”: Jean-Louis Caro,
Journal,
in Bougainville,
Pacific Journal,
200.
3.
from the East Indies: Cook,
Journals,
vol. 1,
Voyage of the Endeavour
, 154; Irwin,
Prehistoric Exploration,
13–16.
4.
“accidental drift”: Kirch,
On the Road of the Winds,
238; Lewis,
We, the Navigators,
16–17; and Irwin,
Prehistoric Exploration,
13–16.
5.
Sundaland to Sahul: Kirch,
On the Road of the Winds,
68.
6.
oldest stone tools: Horridge, “Story of Pacific Sailing Canoes,” 541.
7.
intervisible islands: Kirch,
On the Road of the Winds,
68–69; Irwin,
Prehistoric Exploration,
18–23.
8.
Mount Witori: Kirch,
On the Road of the Winds,
88.
9.
Lapita culture: Ibid., 93–95, 209–10.
10.
A number of sequences: Ibid., 231, and an alternative scenario, 245.
11.
Micronesia’s settlement:
Ibid., 170; Irwin,
Prehistoric Exploration
, 126–27.
12.
What prompted the Lapita people: Kirch,
On the Road of the Winds,
97; Irwin,
Prehistoric Exploration,
42.
13.
“splendid recklessness”: Hornell,
Water Transport,
253.
14.
fisherman named Kupe: I have followed the outline in Buck’s
Coming of the Maori,
5–7; for another interpretation of this and associated traditions, see Walker,
Ka Whawhai Tonu Matou,
34–43.
15.
Although New Zealand is closer: Irwin,
Prehistoric Exploration,
104–10.
16.
average size: By way of example, the average size of the forty-eight islands in the Federated States of Micronesia is 14.4 square kilometers, but the median size is only 1.5 square kilometers; only six are more than 10 square kilometers and only three more than 100 square kilometers.
17.
navigational practices: McGrail,
Boats of the World,
342–45.
18.
trade winds: In
Robinson Crusoe
(1719), Daniel Defoe writes “The winds [in the China Sea] seemed to be more steadily against us, blowing almost Trade, as we call it, from the East, and E.N.E.”
19.
“expand” the size: Lewis,
We, the Navigators,
196.
20.
ocean swells: Ibid., 224–61; Genz, “Oceania,” 146.
21.
“the direction of every known island”: Lewis,
We, the Navigators,
174.
22.
etak,
or reference island: Ibid., 173–79
23.
Hokule’a
:
Ibid., 312–26. Literally “star of gladness,” Hokule’a is otherwise known as Arcturus. The
Polynesian Voyaging Society is an excellent resource for information
about traditional Pacific navigation and boatbuilding generally. The most complete introduction to Pacific boatbuilding remains Haddon and Hornell,
Canoes of Oceania
. McGrail,
Boats of the World,
311–45, is more accessible and up-to-date.
24.
Mau Piailug: “Pius Mau Piailug.”
25.
Double canoes: McGrail,
Boats of the World,
324–26.
26.
capable of carrying: Ibid., 338; Kirch,
On the Road of the Winds,
109–11.
27.
coastal migration: Fladmark, “Routes”; Erlandson et al., “Kelp Highway Hypothesis.”
28.
dearth of harbors: Arnold and Bernard, “Negotiating the Coasts,” 110.
29.
120 kilometers a day: Carvajal,
Discovery of the Amazon
, 99.
30.
Andean civilization emerged: Moseley,
Maritime Foundations of Andean Civilization,
7–17.
31.
reeds, cotton, and gourds: Moseley,
Incas and Their Ancestors,
47.
32.
Chavín’s earliest long-distance trades: Stanish, “Origins of State Societies in Ancient Peru,” 45–48.
33.
thorny oyster: Zeidler, “Maritime Exchange in the Early Formative Period,” 252.
34.
views that Amazonia: Mann,
1491,
280–311.
35.
“the great dominion of Machiparo”: Carvajal,
Discovery of the Amazon,
199.
36.
four hundred liters: Ibid., 201.
37.
“two hundred pirogues”: Ibid., 218.
38.
more than eighteen hundred nautical miles: Callaghan, “Prehistoric Trade Between Ecuador and West Mexico,” 798.
39.
Affinities: Coe, “Archaeological Linkages,” 364–66; Anawalt, “Ancient Cultural Contacts.”
40.
intermittent trade: Shimada, “Evolution of Andean Diversity,” 430–36.
41.
balsas
: rafts; Edwards,
Aboriginal Watercraft
.
42.
“They are level”: Salazar de Villasante, in ibid., 62.
43.
“By sinking some”: Jorge Juan y Santacilia,
Relación Histórica del Viage a la América Meridionel
(1748), in Edwards,
Aboriginal Watercraft
, 73–74, and n. 33. Juan y Santacilia went on to become chief constructor of the Spanish navy, and his two-volume shipbuilding treatise,
Examen marítimo, theórico práctico
…(1771), remained in print for fifty years. See Ferreiro,
Ships and Science,
272–75.
44.
fastest northbound passages: Callaghan, “Prehistoric Trade Between Ecuador and West Mexico,” 801–3.
45.
excited no imitation: Chapman, “Port of Trade Enclaves in Aztec and Maya Civilization,” 131–42.
46.
none of whom: Epstein, “Sails in Aboriginal Mesoamerica.”
47.
Putun Maya: Allaire, “Archaeology of the Caribbean Region,” 711–12.
48.
“by good fortune”: Colón,
Life of the Admiral Christopher Columbus,
chap. 89 (pp. 231–32).
49.
oldest log canoes: Wheeler et al., “Archaic Period Canoes.”
50.
forerunners of planked boats: McGrail,
Boats of the World,
172–80.
51.
Coastal people traded: Fisher, “Northwest from the Beginning of Trade,” 120–24.
52.
“about 200 Men”: DeVoto,
Journals of Lewis and Clark,
Nov. 4, 1805 (p. 275).
53.
Large dugouts: McGrail,
Boats of the World,
172.
54.
“ornimented with Images”: DeVoto,
Journals of Lewis and Clark,
Nov. 4, 1805 (p. 276); Ames, “Going by Boat,” 27–28, 31–32.
55.
“the only tool”: DeVoto,
Journals of Lewis and Clark,
Feb. 1, 1806 (pp. 316–17).
56.
Kayaks, Umiaks, and Baidarkas: Chapelle, “Arctic Skin Boats,” 174–211.
57.
Dorset culture was replaced:
Snow, “First Americans,” 186–93.
58.
“It was sowed together”: Martin Pring, “A Voyage … for the discouerie of the North part of Virginia,” in Quinn and Quinn,
English New England Voyages,
222.
59.
The preferred bark: Adney and Chapelle,
Bark Canoes and Skin Boats,
14–15, 29.
60.
“The Indian”: McPhee,
Survival of the Bark Canoe,
50.
61.
“cocked his arm”: Ibid., 21.
62.
“must be looked upon”: Adney and Chapelle,
Bark Canoes and Skin Boats,
135.
63.
“The board canoe”: Fernando Librado, in Hudson et al.,
Tomol
, 39.