The sea and civilization : a maritime history of the world / Lincoln Paine

London: Atlantic Books, 2015. New edition. Softcover. Very good copy in the original stiff-card wrappers; edges slightly nicked and dust-dulled as with age. Remains particularly and surprisingly well-preserved; tight, bright, clean and especially sharp-cornered. Physical description: xxxv, 744 pages, 16 unnumbered pages of plates: illustrations, maps. Notes: Includes bibliographical references (pages 661-706) and index. Contents: Taking to the water -- The river and seas of ancient Egypt -- Bronze Age seafaring -- Phoenicians, Greeks, and the Mediterranean -- Carthage, Rome, and the Mediterranean -- Chasing the monsoons -- Continent and archipelagoes in the East -- The Christian and Muslim Mediterranean -- Northern Europe through the Viking Age -- The Silk Road of the seas -- China looks seaward -- The medieval Mediterranean and Europe -- The golden age of maritime Asia -- The world encompassed -- The birth of global trade -- State and sea in the age of European expansion -- Northern Europe ascendant -- ""Annihilation of space and time"" -- Naval power in steam and steel -- The maritime world since the 1950s. Summary: A retelling of world history through the lens of maritime enterprise, revealing in 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. Above all, Paine makes clear how the rise and fall of civilizations can be linked to the sea. Subjects: Ocean and civilization. Naval history. Naval art and science History. Navigation History. Sea-power History. Ocean and civilization. Sea-power. Genre: Bibliography. History. Illustrated.