The sea and civilization : a maritime history of the world / Lincoln Paine.

1.Taking to the Water -- 2.The River and Seas of Ancient Egypt -- 3.Bronze Age Seafaring -- 4.Phoenicians, Greeks, and the Mediterranean -- 5.Carthage, Rome, and the Mediterranean -- 6.Chasing the Monsoons -- 7.Continent and Archipelagoes in the East -- 8.The Christian and Muslim Mediterranean -- 9.Northern Europe Through the Viking Age -- 10.The Silk Road of the Seas -- 11.China Looks Seaward -- 12.The Medieval Mediterranean and Europe -- 13.The Golden Age of Maritime Asia -- 14.The World Encompassed -- 15.The Birth of Global Trade -- 16.State and Sea in the Age of European Expansion -- 17.Northern Europe Ascendant -- 18."Annihilation of Space and Time" -- 19.Naval Power in Steam and Steel -- 20.The Maritime World Since the 1950s.

"A monumental, wholly accessible work of scholarship that retells human history through the story of mankind's relationship with the sea. An accomplishment of both great sweep and illuminating detail, The Sea and Civilization is a stunning work of history that reveals in breathtaking depth how people first came into contact with one another by ocean and river, and how goods, languages, religions, and entire cultures spread across and along the world's waterways. 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 and 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, Southeast and East Asia who parlayed their navigational skills, shipbuilding techniques, and commercial acumen to establish vibrant overseas colonies and trade routes in the centuries leading up to the age of European overseas expansion. His narrative traces subsequent developments in commercial and naval shipping through the post-Cold War era. Above all, Paine makes clear how the rise and fall of civilizations can be traced to the sea."--Publisher's description.