Synopses & Reviews
The sea and its relation to human life has always been a subject of fascination for historians. For the first time, this book looks at the field of Maritime History through the prism of identity, looking at how the sea has influenced the formation of identity at a national, local and individual level from the early modern age to the present.
It looks at a variety of people who interacted with the sea in different ways - from merchant sailors to naval officers and, on land, from dockworkers to the civilians who participated in the sea-based festivals in the Mediterranean port city of Messina. A cultural strand runs through the volume, with chapters focussing on the cultural construction of the 'naval hero' in literature, poetry, music and art, and an appraisal of the Japanese author and journalist Ito Masanori, whose works had such a profound influence on Japan's post-World War II national identity. A key focus is the ways in which the Royal Navy influenced British identity at a national and regional level, but other countries with a strong naval tradition - such as Japan, Italy and Germany - are also analysed.
By bringing together a variety of themes related to identity, this book provides the first attempt to thoroughly analyse the ways in which maritime historians have engaged with the question of identity in recent years. In doing so, it provides an important and unique addition to the historiography, which will be essential reading for all scholars of maritime and naval history and those concerned with the question of identity.
Synopsis
The question of identity has preoccupied historians for the last two decades. This book presents the latest scholarly research on the subject of maritime history and identity, looking at how the sea has influenced the formation of identity at a national, local and individual level from the early modern age to the present. It looks at a variety of people who interacted with the sea in different ways - from merchant sailors to naval officers as well as those in land-based occupations who interacted with the sea in a more remote manner. A key focus is the ways in which the Royal Navy influenced British identity at a national and regional level, but other countries with a strong naval tradition - such as Japan, Italy and Germany - are also analyzed. By bringing together a variety of themes related to identity, this book provides an important and unique addition to the historiography, which will be essential reading for all scholars of maritime and naval history and those concerned with the question of identity.
About the Author
Duncan Redford is Senior Research Fellow in Modern Naval History at the National Museum of the Royal Navy (NMRN). He previously held a Leverhulme Early Career Research Fellowships at the Centre for Maritime Historical Studies, University of Exeter and is the author of
The Submarine: A Cultural History from the Great War to Nuclear Combat (I.B.Tauris). He is the General Editor of the
History of the Royal Navy series, published by I.B.Tauris in association with the National Museum of the Royal Navy.
Table of Contents
Introduction
1. Navies and National Identity
2. The Naval Hero and British National Identity 1707-1750
3. Ito Masanori, the Imperial Navy and Japan's Post-war National Identity
4. The Royal Navy, Sea Blindness and British National Identity
5. The Sea and Regional Identities
6. Like the Crew of a Ship: The Sea and Identity in Modern Messina
7. The Bridge, the River and the Ocean Sea: Concepts of Space in the Seventeenth-Century London Maritime Community
8. The Small Country as a Maritime Great Power: The Case of Norway
9. Regional Voices: National Causes 1930-1945
10. Corporate Identities in the Naval and Maritime Sector
11. The Other Side of an Amphibian's Identity: British Marines on Land, 1755-1802
12. Untergang and the Corporate Identity of the Imperial German Navy in the World War I
13. The Sea and the Identity of the Individual Seafarer
14. Defying Conformity: Using Tattoos to Express Individuality in the Victorian Royal Navy
15. They Thought they were Normal - and Queens too: Gay Seafarers on British Liners 1950-1985
16. Navies and Imperial Identities
17. From Trafalgar to Santiago: The Spanish Navy and National Identity in Nineteenth-Century Spain
18. 'Of the Blood of Sea Peoples': Navalism and 'Greater Britain' 1897-1914
19. Identifying 'Seagoing Races': Britain's Colonial Naval Volunteers and the Forging of Identity during World War II