SEA CHANGE
Seapower States: Maritime Culture, Continental Empires and the Conflict That Made the Modern World
By Andrew Lambert.
399 pages.
Yale University Press, 2018.
$30.
Reviewed by Craig L. Symonds
In an ambitious and provocative work that spans 25 centuries, Andrew Lambert, a professor of history at King’s College, London, draws a sharp distinction between seapower states and sea power (two words) states. The former, he writes, are political entities that fully embrace the sea both strategically and culturally; the latter are simply nations with large navies. Lambert argues that throughout history there have been only five true seapower states: Athens, Carthage, Venice, the Dutch Republic, and Britain, which he somewhat mournfully brands “The Last Seapower.”
What these seapower states had in common, Lambert asserts, was not only maritime identities that bound them to the sea but also national institutions that were compatible with such a status: democratic politics, a capitalist economy, and the rule of law. In this respect, he contrasts the five states with great powers that employed navies as national instruments of power but did not embrace the sea as a hallmark of their culture because of their commitment to continental hegemony. These include Rome, the France of Louis XIV, Imperial Germany, Peter the Great’s Russia, and, in modern times, the United States. Occupying a status between seapowers and sea powers were small sea states that thrived when they could avoid being squeezed by great power rivalries. These include Rhodes, Genoa, and Florence, as well as Portugal, which, despite its maritime empire, Lambert
