Maritime Supremacy and the Opening of the Western Mind: Naval campaigns that shaped the modern world, 1588-1782

· Maritime Trilogy Book 1 · Tantor Media Inc · Narrated by James Cameron Stewart
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14 hr 42 min
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About this audiobook

In the great wars of modern history, maritime powers have always prevailed over land-based empires, whether Habsburg, Napoleonic, Nazi or Soviet. In contrast to the rigid hierarchies and centralization of land-based empires, those nations attaining mastery at sea have been distinguished by liberty, flexibility, and enterprise. The seventeenth-century Dutch were the first to achieve naval and trading dominance and, exploring the effects on daily life, industry, art and thought, finance and power politics, Peter Padfield reveals the Dutch in their golden age as the heralds of modern Western society. The British took over the Dutch system of naval, trading, and world supremacy in the eighteenth century and were, in their turn, displaced by the United States in the twentieth. This book carries the story from the defeat of the Armada in 1588 to the American Revolutionary War and Rodney's victory. Maritime Supremacy and the Opening of the Western Mind charts the growth of linked strengths-sea-fighting, trading, financial and constitutional-which made empires so formidable, and reveals how supremacy at sea freed thought and society itself.

About the author

Peter Padfield is a leading naval historian and biographer. His many books include War Beneath the Sea and Maritime Power and the Struggle for Freedom, winner of the 2003 Mountbatten Maritime Prize.

Trained at Hull University and the Bristol Old Vic Theatre School, James Cameron Stewart is a veteran actor whose performances include roles in theater, film, and television. His credits include Outlander, Jericho, Flying Blind, Golden Years, Emmerdale, London's Burning, Eastenders, Coronation Street, and Holby City.

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