high caloric efficiency, was both an economic and a strategic asset. It provided a
lucrative export commodity and ensured that British shipping would always have
an adequate supply of an essential resource in peace or war.
A small island, Britain is by definition a coastal nation, with London both its
maritime and its political capital. Some states are both coastal and continental;
France and even Germany are such hybrids, torn between opportunities. Their
coastal areas may look to the sea and interact with it, but continental influences
ultimately prevail. Thus Paris has dominated Marseille, Berlin, and Hamburg.
Some states like Japan, and China and Korea too, have fluctuated in their attach-
ment to the sea. In the Tokugawa era, continental influences dominated Japan.
In the Meiji period that followed, the coastal seized command, and Japan took
to the sea.
I suggest that we can divide the coastal into two subcategories: landbound
and seagoing. Coastal states, even islands, are not necessarily oriented toward
seagoing endeavors. They may be landbound. This is a matter not of location
but of choice. Landbound societies are indifferent to the ocean; seagoing societies
embrace it.
Sicily is a prime cultural receptor, enjoying an exceptionally rich cultural
experience and providing a longtime delight for the tourist. Sicily is home to a
multilayered civilization, but it is not a cultural disseminator. Sicilians are ardent
fishermen, but they did not build trading empires. In the words of one of the
island’s greatest writers, Sicilians perceived the sea as ‘‘capable only of carrying
away the emigrants and disembarking the invaders.’’ Sicily has remained land-
bound and never become seagoing.
Or take the case of Bali, a small island that is coastal but not seagoing. Its
cultural orientation is toward the mountains, not the sea. The Balinese perceive
the mountains as the home of the gods, the sea as a place of demons. Despite
the island’s many beautiful beaches, the Balinese do not learn how to swim, or
they do so only badly. A ferry accident thus becomes a disaster.
Those societies on the sea that transcend the landbound and become seagoing
do so as a result of a complex series of cultural decisions and attitudes. Each case
is different; perhaps a political scientist could construct a model for this, but
historians find differences fascinating, and we are more likely to look for those
rather than similarities.
In any case, the remarkable success of seagoing societies as generators of
power and accumulators of wealth makes the matter of their character worth
exploring. The maritime Mediterranean world springs immediately into mind:
Genoa or Venice or, much earlier, Tyre, Sidon, and then Athens. Ringing the
Baltic, independent or quasi-independent Hanseatic city-states such as Riga or
Bergen bestrode history powerfully at one time or another, as did feisty and
outward-looking Aceh at the far western tip of Sumatra. But their impact was
regional rather than global, thalassic rather than pelagic.
Imperial China and the Sea 19