Civilisation’s watery superhighway

The clue is in the title: this is not about the blue-grey-green wet stuff that covers 70 per cent of our planet’s surface. Rather, it’s about how the sea and our use of it have influenced us economically, culturally, religiously and politically:

Much of human history has been shaped by people’s access, or lack of it, to navigable water …. Life on the water — whether for commerce, warfare, exploration or migration — has been a driving force in human history.

Admitting that he wants to ‘change the way you see the world’, Lincoln Paine also claims that ‘The past century has witnessed a sea change in how we approach maritime history.’

He adduces a deal of evidence from times ancient and modern to show how the sea has at once protected and exposed, enabled and frustrated, attracted and repelled us. Nowadays, with more sea cruises annually than before the jet age and with the proliferation of leisure sailing, we have made a pleasure out of what was once a peril, yet 90 per cent of the world’s freight is still sea-borne.