Ideologies of Western Naval Power, c. 1500-1815
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Book Description
This ground-breaking book provides the first study of naval ideology, defined as the mass of cultural ideas and shared perspectives that, for early modern states and belief systems, justified the creation and use of naval forces. Sixteen scholars examine a wide range of themes over a wide time period and broad geographical range, embracing Britain, the Netherlands, France, Spain, Sweden, Russia, Venice and the United States, along with the "extra-national" polities of piracy, neutrality, and international Calvinism. This volume provides important and often provocative new insights into both the growth of western naval power and important elements of political, cultural and religious history.
Table of Contents
Introduction: The Ghost at the Banquet: Navies, Ideologies, and the Writing of History
J.D. Davies, Alan James and Gijs Rommelse
Section One: Navies and National Identities
1. Groom of the Sea: Venetian Sovereignty Between Power and Myth
Luciano Pezzolo
2. National Flags as Essential Elements of Dutch Naval Ideology, 1570-1800
Gijs Rommelse
3. Towards a Scientific Navy: Institutional Identity and Spain’s Eighteenth-Century Navy
Catherine Scheybeler
4. The French Navy from Louis XV to Napoleon I: What Role and by What Means?
Patrick Villiers
Section Two: Monarchical Projects
5. Fleets and States in a Composite Catholic Monarchy: Spain c. 1500-1700
Christopher Storrs
6. "Great Neptunes of the Main": Myths, Mangled Histories, and "Maritime Monarchy" in the Stuart Navy, 1603-1714
J.D. Davies
7. Colbert and La Royale: Dynastic Ambitions and Imperial Ideals in France
Alan James
Section Three: Communities of Violence
8. Corsairs in Tunis from the Sixteenth to Nineteenth Centuries: A Matter of Religion and Economics
Sadok Boubaker
9. Transnational Calvinist Cooperation and "Mastery of the Sea" in the Late Sixteenth Century
D.J.B. Trim
10. Shadow States and Ungovernable Ships: The Ideology of Early Modern Piracy
Claire Jowitt
11. Greeks into Privateers: Law and Language of Commerce Raiding Under the Imperial Russian Flag, 1760s-1790s
Julia Leikin
Section Four: Constructing Strategies
12. Kingship, Religion and History: Swedish Naval Ideology, 1500-1830
Lars Ericson Wolke
13. Neutrality at Sea: Scandinavian Responses to ‘Great Power’ Maritime Warfare, 1651-1713
Steve Murdoch
14. Naval Ideology and Its Operational Impact in Eighteenth Century Britain
Richard Harding
15. Debating the Purpose of a Navy in a New Republic: The United States of America, 1775-1815
John B. Hattendorf
Section Five: Afterword
Afterword
Andrew Lambert
Editor(s)
Biography
J.D. Davies is a Vice-President of the Society for Nautical Research and a Fellow of the Royal Historical Society.
Alan James is a Senior Lecturer in War Studies at King’s College London.
Gijs Rommelse is Head of History at the Haarlemmermeer Lyceum in Hoofddorp, the Netherlands, and an Honorary Visiting Fellow at the University of Leicester.