The Sea and Civilization

A Maritime History of the World

By: Lincoln Paine

Narrated by: Tom Perkins

Length: 29 hrs and 41 mins

Publisher's summary

A monumental retelling of world history through the lens of maritime enterprise, revealing in breathtaking depth how people first came into contact with one another by ocean and river, lake and stream, and how goods, languages, religions, and entire cultures spread across and along the world's waterways, bringing together civilizations and defining what makes us most human.

Lincoln Paine takes us back to the origins of long-distance migration by sea with our ancestors' first forays from Africa and Eurasia to Australia and the Americas. He demonstrates the critical role of maritime trade to the civilizations of ancient Egypt, Mesopotamia, and the Indus Valley. He reacquaints us with the great seafaring cultures of antiquity like those of the Phoenicians and Greeks as well as those of India and Southeast and East Asia, who parlayed their navigational skills, shipbuilding techniques, and commercial acumen to establish thriving overseas colonies and trade routes in the centuries leading up to the age of European expansion. And finally, his narrative traces how commercial shipping and naval warfare brought about the enormous demographic, cultural, and political changes that have globalized the world throughout the post-Cold War era.

©2013 Lincoln Paine (P)2018 Tantor

Critic reviews

"Paine's highly detailed work encompasses a wide array of topics, from trade and the influence of the sea on warfare and political coalitions, to ship building techniques through the ages, to piracy and slavery.... Paine has compiled an invaluable resource for salty dogs and land-lubbers alike." ( Publishers Weekly)

I loved this book

Pirates seeded the genetic world of today. Recent, superior authors of this thinking, and I, are so pleased with this all encompassing history. Many books should come from this one. I have not found a similar full account.
Sea economics on earth in Charles McCoy's, To Govern the Globe, is elegant, if sparse. World Orders and Empires become clear in his book. Per Mr McCoy up until recently a book using the word EMPIRE wouldn't be published in USA...Dulles brothers no doubt.

Scholarly but uninspiring history

Paine performs an excellent work of scholarship laying the groundwork of maritime history, but fails to deliver either on the commonalities of seagoing across civilizations or to condense his work into a strong and interesting thesis. This is where the book falls short of Silk Roads or Mike Duncan’s Revolutions Podcast that feel more like they have something they want to put forward.

Decent overview

the ancient history is priceless but the new needs more attention, thoroughly enjoyed it and definitely reccomend it as a primer!

Comprehensive

Paine lays down an important history of the world through the civilizational glue that is the sea. Recommend.

Excellent Worldwide Maritime History

Particularly well researched, especially Far East, India, Caliphates to Byzantine seas... Early voyages of Exploration and Expansion make the 1500-1650 period come alive like an explosion. A Great overview for anyone unfamiliar with international trade by sea and ship, prehistory to our modern world.

huge subject over all of history, kept moving

concise explanations which logically progressed. Including not only Naval or military but also trade & comerce

a bit outside my interest

The story is slow and full of minute details (dates, names). I found the modern information much more interesting but I had to get through a lot of drudgery to get that far.

A little slow to get started

It took about two or three hours to really get into the substance of the book. After that it was very interesting.

Comprehensive

This book covers just about every region on Earth through all the centuries and has a lot of great history. It also covers archaeological sites and written accounts and describes where they differ or contradict each other. If you like history you'll like it. So many history books cover and re-cover the same material this book goes out of its way to cover things you may never have heard of.
HOWEVER without a map, or a lot of maps, you'll be lost if you don't have a previous deep understanding of any given region being described. I'd characterize myself as being quite proficient in world geography and I'm having trouble keeping up at times. So a hard copy with maps (if the regular book provides maps) would be helpful but it's a great audiobook regardless. You'll learn a lot and with things you already know about you might get one or two little extra interesting facts you didn't know before.

Not what I expected

I was expecting more of the history of the sea instead of history of the world vaguely related to the sea. The author mentions at one point that one of the sea battles with the most documented sea battle of that time. That is all he says on the matter. However, I do feel like the second half of the book was better and more sea related.