Maritime Empires

1 Key excerpts on "Maritime Empires"

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  eBook - ePub

  Warfare at Sea, 1500-1650

  Maritime Conflicts and the Transformation of Europe

  • Jan Glete(Author)
  • 2002(Publication Date)
  • Routledge

    (Publisher)

  The early modern period saw the rise and decline of several Maritime Empires within Europe, that is political and commercial spheres of influence connected by sea lines of communication. Some of these, like the Spanish, Ottoman, Danish and Swedish empires, were primarily political, while others, like the Hanseatic network of trade in Northern Europe and the Dutch control of large parts of seventeenth–century Europe’s maritime trade, were economic or informal empires. The Venetian empire was a mix of both. In what way were the changing fortunes of these empires connected with early modern changes in naval technology and naval organisation? Were the nations which were successful in developing trade empires only economically successful or was their rise a result of an efficient naval and maritime policy also?

  3 The expansion and restructuring of interregional seaborne trade

  During the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries, inter–European seaborne trade increased in volume and complexity. Larger volumes of more diversified types of products were traded over longer distances. This opened new areas for more sophisticated production and consumption and formed a pre–requisite for later economic development. An important change was the decline of Southern Europe and the Mediterranean area and the dynamic rise of Western and Northern Europe which became the economic centre of Europe. Were these changes connected with maritime warfare and new conditions for protection and coercion of long–distance trade? Was the efficient use of modern types of violence at sea a necessary skill for the rise of new entrepreneurs in long–distance trade?

  4 The European expansion overseas

  The most dramatic and well–known development in the maritime sphere is the expansion of European activities from the coastal waters around Europe to most parts of the world. Africa, Asia and America were connected with Europe and with each other through a maritime network of trade controlled by the Europeans and the European powers began to compete and wage war with each other far from Europe. In what way was this European expansion connected swith new forms of and ambitions for warfare at sea?

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