ABSTRACT
This introduction presents an overview of the concepts discussed in the subsequent chapters of this book. The book focuses on a detailed assessment of coastal trade in King’s Lynn and Plymouth. It examines Ottoman naval organization, a subject often ignored in Eurocentric historiography and aims to show how ports, as opposed to ships, provided opportunities to display splendour and how they housed inhabitants capable of taking on multiple socio-economic roles. The book shows that, in pre-reformation England, fishing formed an important part of the economic and cultural fabric of coastal communities. It also examines the experiences of English trading companies during an important phase of their development and explores creative practices and forms beyond the page and stage with which artists responded to sea exploits. In parallel with Dan Brayton’s notion of Jack Tar as global citizen, Jowitt identifies European, especially English, strains of, and on, the maritime heroic tradition.
