Seapower States: Maritime Culture, Continental Empires and the Conflict That Made the Modern World

One of the most eminent historians of our age investigates the extraordinary success of five small maritime states

Andrew Lambert, author of The Challenge: Britain Against America in the Naval War of 1812—winner of the prestigious Anderson Medal—turns his attention to Athens, Carthage, Venice, the Dutch Republic, and Britain, examining how their identities as “seapowers” informed their actions and enabled them to achieve success disproportionate to their size.
 
Lambert demonstrates how creating maritime identities made these states more dynamic, open, and inclusive than their lumbering continental rivals. Only when they forgot this aspect of their identity did these nations begin to decline. Recognizing that the United States and China are modern naval powers—rather than seapowers—is essential to understanding current affairs, as well as the long-term trends in world history. This volume is a highly original “big think” analysis of five states whose success—and eventual failure—is a subject of enduring interest, by a scholar at the top of his game.

• Empires of the Weak: The Real Story of European Expansion and the Creation of the New World Order
• Red Star Over the Pacific, Second Edition: China's Rise and the Challenge to U.S. Maritime Strategy
• Big Week: The Biggest Air Battle of World War II
• The Great Delusion: Liberal Dreams and International Realities (Henry L. Stimson Lectures)
• Learning War: The Evolution of Fighting Doctrine in the U.S. Navy, 1898-1945
• The Lessons of Tragedy: Statecraft and World Order
• The Hell of Good Intentions: America's Foreign Policy Elite and the Decline of U.S. Primacy
• Armies of Sand: The Past, Present, and Future of Arab Military Effectiveness
• Grand Improvisation: America Confronts the British Superpower, 1945-1957
• Active Defense: China's Military Strategy since 1949 (Princeton Studies in International History and Politics)