ABSTRACT
If the scholars of other ages preferred to make whiggish structures of the past, imposing order on chaos in the interests of social cohesion and moral teaching, then that age has passed. Today we look to the many pasts that loom into view, each laden with manifold meanings at once more complex, and less inclusive than hitherto. Engineers, naval officers and the technologies they developed changed the maritime world, but not for the sake of technological change. Complex political, economic, strategic and engineering questions drove the inter-twined history of steam power, iron hulls, submarine telegraphs, ports and shipyards: in the process new tasks emerged and new forms of business; new weapons, and new defences. All this took place as the mental world of an age, moving towards popular democracy, total war and ideological crisis, struggled to make sense of a process that seemed to be endless, out of control and inscrutable.
