Collins, Nick The Ascent of Maritime Trade 1700-2025

Enlightening the World

This is the third volume in a series highlighting maritime trade as a driving force behind world history, the creation of wealth, technological innovation, and art and literature. The book focuses on the "Maritime Enlightenment"a movement that, unlike its continental counterpart, fostered economic liberalism and humanitarian endeavors, broke with outdated views on slavery and serfdom, and places current debates regarding imperial history in a new context. It demonstrates that illegal maritime trade was the immediate trigger for the American War of Independence. Jefferson and Madison underestimated the latent, prosperity-generating potential of US trade and for years directed their energies in the wrong direction. Tensions between the Northern and Southern states of the US were exacerbated more by trade tariffs than by slavery. The failure of the French Revolution and Germanys wars in the 20th century can also be attributed to a failure to recognize this significance. The post-1945 rise of Japan, Korea, Taiwan, Singapore, China, and the UAE was directly linked to the promotion of maritime trade and shipping. Britains decline was heralded first by political indifference and later by open hostilitya stark contrast to the earlier support for the sector that had once been its greatest strength. The chapter on the shipping industry's efforts to achieve climate neutrality (net zero) is essential reading for anyone engaged in the sustainability debate.