Seapower States

Maritime Culture, Continental Empires, and the Conflict That Made the Modern World

By: Andrew Lambert

Narrated by: Julian Elfer

Length: 13 hrs and 43 mins

Publisher's summary

Andrew Lambert, author of The Challenge - winner of the prestigious Anderson Medal - turns his attention to Athens, Carthage, Venice, the Dutch Republic, and Britain, examining how their identities as "seapowers" informed their actions and enabled them to achieve success disproportionate to their size.

Lambert demonstrates how creating maritime identities made these states more dynamic, open, and inclusive than their lumbering continental rivals. Only when they forgot this aspect of their identity did these nations begin to decline. Recognizing that the United States and China are modern naval powers - rather than seapowers - is essential to understanding current affairs, as well as the long-term trends in world history. This volume is a highly original "big think" analysis of five states whose success - and eventual failure - is a subject of enduring interest, by a scholar at the top of his game.

©2018 Andrew Lambert (P)2018 Tantor

Compelling analysis of sea power

Lambert distinguishes among three kinds of states: sea states, seapower states and those states with sea power. Sea states are those entities located on or near the sea with limited territory that subsist, or thrive, using the sea as the primary means of trade and wealth creation. Like Thucydides, Lambert defines seapower states as sea states that have made the decision, and have the resources, to prioritize sea power and use it to protect their commerce and territorial integrity well enough to become regional, or world, powers. By contrast, states with sea power are those entities with substantial territory and manpower that use naval power as adjuncts to their armies.

Traditionally, the sea has offered more opportunity for freedom and individual initiative than has the land. It also offers the means of communicating the ideas of freedom and initiative to others. For that reason, it has been feared by those concerned with stability, and/or control, from Plato and Confucius to ancient Rome and Napoleon.

Lambert argues that seapower states had to make the deliberate decision to allocate resources to creating and maintaining sufficient naval power to protect trade and what territory they had. Merchants of course were the ones who wanted such protection, and the successful ones were in the position of being able to contribute such resources. They would only do so, however, if they had a voice in how such resources were used, and so they had to be included within the political class. They also insisted on the predictability of the rule of law to protect their assets, and naturally they were capitalists and opposed to command economies.

In Athens, this led to a democracy of all adult male citizens, while, in Carthage, Venice, the Dutch Republic and post-1688 Britain, it led to what Lambert calls a republican oligarchy. This inclusivity, the rule of law and capitalist economies were, and are, anathema to hegemonic empires, be they ancient Persia, the Roman Republic, Russia or China. In fact, Lambert argues that Rome destroyed Carthage not because it was a military threat, but because its existence advertised ideas of political inclusion beyond the traditional landed aristocracy.

By using control of the seas, seapower states could punch above their weight class and become regional or world powers. They were most successful when they could balance the ambitions of different landed hegemons against each other and were vulnerable when a landed hegemon was strong enough to conquer the seapower state by land and then destroy the latter’s fleet. Athens was crushed; Carthage was destroyed, while Venice, the Dutch Republic and Britain were able to manage their declines to second tier status.

Lambert also adds incisive analyses of the contemporary United States, Russia, China, Britain and Europe.

This is a very scholarly work, and, as such, it presumes listeners’ familiarity with general aspects of world history. Its scope is broad and thorough. Lambert has provided a compelling, well written argument.

While I could quibble some with Lambert’s discussion of Britain’s treatment of her colonies, those concerns do not detract from the thrust of Lambert’s work. My one big question though is why Lambert did not discuss the Hanseatic League. While the League was not one entity, but rather a collection of cities, it otherwise seems to meet Lambert’s criteria of a seapower, and I would have appreciated his analysis of the rise and fall of the League.

Great history and analysis, but...

Thoroughly enjoyed listening. Great history book and the author draws a lot of his own conclusions from comparison of other great powers in a historically different context. Excellent. However, the only criticism is he spends a lot of time trying to justify his definition of sea state, which is ambiguous and controversial. However, in the end, he defines a sea state by what it doesn't have rather than intrinsic characteristics.

Quite Amazing Read

Wow. The most reflective historical essay I have yet to encounter. Dr Lambert revises our perspective of our historical landscape by focusing on those States that have shaped our current understanding of what is best and the brightest in ourselves. My greatest wish would be that the leadership of the Western democracies took its teachings to heart. With thoughtful leadership as shown by the author we have the tools necessary to contain the autocratic monocultures that would do us harm today. By his choice of the play of history Dr Lambert allows us to see how we are both inheritors of value and are now actors that have choice in developing our future State and States. Remarkable.

A world on water

love this book and have listened to it twice. the reader, Julian elfer the best!

not awful

It's a cool premise, but he never really delivered on it. I'm convinced by the basics of the premise, but only because of what I already knew about Venice and Great Britain.

Good basic history, but he never actually digs into his own argument. The premise is that the identity is based on culture and "constant renewal" but we never actually went into what that means and how these cultures executed on either.

Not a compelling read.

only got 1 hour or so through

Intro and part of Ch. 1 i listened to were horribly repetitive....went around in circles a bit--these are not such difficult cocnepts that they require this. the editor failed in his job.
gave up
maybe back end is better