Shorter Pieces

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.

Recognizing the Security Threat at Old River Control

Paine, Old River Control SHSea History 167 (2019): 5–6.

While visiting New Orleans in March, I persuaded three siblings and our father to join me on an expedition to visit the Old River Control structure between Lettsworth and Vidalia, Louisiana. If you want to get people to join you on an eight-hour field trip, you need a compelling story. Mine is this: Old River Control is the single most important piece of infrastructure in the United States. It is also the most vulnerable.More

Review of The Sea in History/La mer dans l’histoire, edited by Christian Buchet, et al., 4 vols

Sea History 167 (2019): 61–62.

The four-volume The Sea in History is the product of the Paris-based Association Océanides, which bills itself as a multidisciplinary project with three objectives: “to provide scientific proof that the oceans are at the heart of political, economic and social issues, to enhance the overall policy of the seas, and to train future generations.” Conceived in 2010 and published only seven years later, the set includes English and French essays by some 260 different scholars from forty countries.

The Mariners’ World: Comprehending the Incomprehensible

Offing Echoes (Mumbai) (Feb. 2019): 15–22.

Few arenas of human activity have a greater influence on the world today than the maritime industry. Perhaps none does. This is not hyperbole. Rather, it is a simple fact, as attested in three straightforward statistics: The world’s oceangoing fleet carries about 80 percent of world trade by volume. The ocean covers 71 percent of the planet and contains 95 per cent of the world’s water. Yet these plain statements have become dull with repetition, perhaps because what happens on and in the ocean is important almost beyond our ability to comprehend it. As a result, perhaps no line of work is as unacknowledged or underappreciated. A vexing and persistent question for people working in the maritime professions is, How can I make people appreciate the immediate importance of maritime enterprise—what I do—to their lives?More