Shorter Pieces

Getting the Story Right

Sea History 172 (2020): 5.

In June, the Maine Maritime Museum announced its plan “to consider how an institution such as ours can contribute to the dialogue about equity, inclusion, and justice, particularly by raising awareness of how Maine’s maritime enterprise has shaped and been shaped by issues of race, ethnicity, and gender.” Skeptics abound, of course. What can a maritime museum in the whitest state in the country possibly have to say about race in what many incorrectly perceive to be a “white” profession?More

The Environmental Turn in Maritime History

Argonauta 37:2 (2020): 5–8.

Periodic reviews of the state of maritime history suggest that there is a growing awareness of maritime enterprise as a discrete and productive specialty within the wider ambit of the historical discipline, and that practitioners of the subject are following ever-multiplying lines of inquiry. It is especially remarkable to consider how much the field has grown in the seven years that have elapsed since Kelly Chaves, Josh Smith, and I were last invited to offer our views on the subject. Back then, Maurice Smith was concerned about “planning for a long-term healthy future” for the discipline. Seven years is not long-term, but there is no question that the state of maritime history can only be described as healthy—even robust.
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An interview with Professor Sal Mercogliano, North American Society for Oceanic History (NASOH)

June 8, 2020More

2020—Putting Our Pandemic in Perspective

Engelsberg Ideas, June 30, 2020

Historians are masters of teasing momentous events from apparently insignificant details. The most obvious such effort is Ray Huang’s 1587, A Year of No Significance: The Ming Dynasty in Decline, which considered a number of little examined incidents and trends that took place in or began in 1587 and that, in hindsight, anticipated the collapse of the Ming Dynasty two or three generations later. In choosing what to expand upon in his study, Huang, writing in 1981, had the benefit of nearly four centuries of research, debate, and interpretation. We can be sure that his choices would have been wildly different had he been writing in 1587.More

The History of Quarantine

Engelsberg Ideas, History Lessons, July 1, 2020
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Review of Seapower States: Maritime Culture, Continental Empires, and the Conflict that Made the Modern World, by Andrew Lambert

USNI Blog, Oct. 1, 2019.

Few subjects are more hotly debated by naval officers, policy makers, and historians than the strategic implications and definition of sea power, a concept first developed by the U.S. naval officer and historian Alfred Thayer Mahan in his pioneering work The Influence of Sea Power Upon History, 1660–1783.