Articles, Chapters, and Talks

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

Fudan Journal of the Humanities and Social Sciences. 12 (2019): 457–72.

To take the pulse of history, touch a river. For land-bound species dependent on water for mere survival, they are indispensable. But humans’ relationship to rivers is far more complex than that of any other life form. Streams may entice us with their apparent serenity or vibrant turbulence. Rivers may offer easy communication along their length even as they block our advance across them. They may destroy our property in full flood but leave us begging for their return in times of low water or drought. They may seem susceptible to our engineering, but ultimately rivers will always have their way, and we must bow to them.More

In The World’s Ocean: Culture, History, and the Environment, edited by Lance Nolde and Rainer F. Buschmann, 90–108. Santa Barbara: ABC-Clio 2018.

Culture comprises many elements, including beliefs, social norms, traditional customs, the arts, civic institutions, and collective achievements of people or societies, and people both shape culture and are shaped by it. In considering why oceans and seas matter in world culture, it is essential to realize that before mechanical ground transportation and aviation in the 19th and 20th centuries, ships and boats were usually the most efficient means of transportation—when they were not the only ones. Thus, the opening of sea routes invariably resulted in cultural transformation, sometimes immediate, other times only in the long term.More

In The Return of Geopolitics: Perspectives from the Engelsberg Seminar 2016, edited by Kurt Almqvist, Alexander Linklater, and Andrew Mackenzie. Stockholm: Axel and Margaret Ax:son Johnson Foundation, 2017.

One of the more pressing but unspoken geopolitical issues of our time has to do with the role of the United States as the world’s preeminent military power—or as Americans like to think of it, its role as the global policeman and leader of the free world. And any consideration of that question leads inevitably, if not immediately, to a discussion of American sea power and the U.S. Navy. Because without its navy, which for the past seven decades has been the most powerful in the world, the United States could not have been as active a participant in the world as it has been. Or to take a less charitable view, the U.S. could not have gotten into or caused as much trouble as it has.More

The Mariner’s Mirror 102:4 (2016): 388–99.

The greatest challenge faced by maritime museums is how we make ourselves relevant in the twenty-first century. This is a problem that has three components, which we can characterize loosely as geography, chronology and theme or discipline. Foremost of these is, as they say in the real-estate world, location, location, location. Maritime museums have by default allowed our physical location to define and determine the centre and scope of all our activities, whether our focus is a port city; a bay, a lake, or a river; whether it is local or regional, or national or imperial; or even when its focus is on a particular industry or trade.More

International Journal of Maritime History 28:3 (2016): 589–600.

As anyone who has ever read two or more reviews of the same work knows, the parable of the blind men and the elephant is really about launching a book into the world. This can be exasperating at times, particularly for authors who are themselves reviewers (or teachers) and more accustomed to judging than being judged. But reading reviews of one’s work is more often than not a salutary exercise (people who claim not to are missing out), if only for the gratification of reading an affirmation of some aspect of their effort. So I begin with the acknowledgement of my thanks, not only for the kind things that Patrick Manning, Paul Buell, John Gillis, and Fabio López Lázaro have written, but for the time they have taken to give The Sea and Civilization such close readings and for the thoughtful critiques that flow from that.More