Description: Oceanic Histories is the first comprehensive account of world history focused not on the land but viewed through the 70% of the Earth's surface covered by water. Leading historians trace the history of the Indian, Pacific, and Atlantic Oceans and seas, from the Arctic and the Baltic to the South China Sea and the Sea of Japan/Korea's East Sea, over the longue durée. Individual chapters trace the histories and the historiographies of the various oceanic regions, with special attention given to the histories of circulation and particularity, the links between human and non-human history and the connections and comparisons between parts of the World Ocean. Showcasing oceanic history as a field with a long past and a vibrant future, these authoritative surveys, original arguments and guides to research make this volume an indispensable resource for students and scholars alike.
Brief description: David Armitage is the Lloyd C. Blankfein Professor of History at Harvard University, an Honorary Professor of History at the University of Sydney and an Honorary Fellow of St Catharine's College, Cambridge. He is the author or editor of sixteen books, among them Civil Wars: A History in Ideas (2017), The History Manifesto (co-author, 2014), Pacific Histories: Ocean, Land, People (co-editor, 2014), Foundations of Modern International Thought (Cambridge, 2013), The British Atlantic World, 1500-1800 (2nd edition, co-editor, 2009), The Declaration of Independence: A Global History (2007) and The Ideological Origins of the British Empire (Cambridge, 2000).
Review Quotes: 'This is the book oceanic scholars have been waiting for. Five oceans, six seas, eleven top scholars and a dozen magisterial essays that map the contemporary state of oceanic historiographies. With a rambunctious 'cast' of wind, wave, whale, ship and sailor, the volume probes the surface and depth of the ocean, the historical and the environmental, extending our sense of world history, both vertically and horizontally.' Isabel Hofmeyr, University of the Witwatersrand and New York University