ABSTRACT
In the making of connections, the role of the sea is particularly fascinating. Connections across large, mainly uninhabited, open spaces have brought together peoples in culturally stimulating ways. The impressive history of the British navy, still in progress, by the Oxford-based historian N. A. M. Rodger offers an excellent example of the traditional approach to the history of the sea, anchored in the study of national navies. The Baltic and North Sea are often described as a sort of Mediterranean–the eminent historian Roberto Lopez called these two seas "the Northern Mediterranean", which is rather confusing; 'Mediterranean of the North' would be a better way of describing the area. Looming over all historians of the Mediterranean, and indeed over historians of all seas, lies the shadow of Fernand Braudel. While the proportion of trade carried by sea has increased over time, there is nothing new in the basic argument that maritime trade has been of massive economic and cultural importance over several millennia.
