Abstract
The current issue of the International Journal of Maritime History introduces a diverse set of research questions. Answers to these questions have been found in original bodies of archival resources worldwide.
The issue opens with an article by Lilyam Reyes and Alberto José Abao about the defensive system surrounding the port of Cadiz. Improvements in this system greatly contributed to the development of the port into a significant hub in the Early Modern Spanish Atlantic world.
The contribution by Nathan Jopling gives insights into a different type of development in the Atlantic world. He focuses on the effects of English privateering and piracy between the 1660 s and the 1720s as a pivotal period used by the English state to bring the Caribbean into the fold of a larger vision of what was to become the British Empire.
If the age of privateering and piracy in the Caribbean provoked tumult and pushed for profound changes in the British sphere, the same can be argued for the American Revolutionary period. The independence of the United States of America rested as much on local opposition to British rule as on support from ‘friendly’ nations. Erik Odegard addresses the contribution of Amsterdam shipbuilding to the American revolution and leaves open a research agenda for a new field of historical investigation.
Michael Wittig turns away from an focus on the European experience of the maritime world alone by demonstrating the need to enlarge the scope maritime historians have devoted to non-European experiences of maritime history and to non-Western visions and ideas of the maritime world. The same claim holds true for the article by Maya Vinai and S. M. Mithuna and their forward looking article where a postcolonial analysis of a classic stands central.
The current issue also has the privilege to include a research note with a creative new proposal to look at the traditional Lloyd's register archive. Guided by new research questions and a renewed historical curiosity, the authors devise new interpretative avenues for a rather well-known archive.
This issue also returns to a traditional format in the International Journal of Maritime History. Valerie Burton took up the arduous task of organizing a roundtable concerning the book Capitalism and the Sea. The Maritime Factor in the Making of the Modern World by Liam Campling and Alejandro Colàs. The variety of authors, opinions and insights generated by this roundtable and the kind and professional answer by the book's authors celebrates the return to a format of academic discussion always welcome in this journal.
The issue closes, as usual, with a series of book reviews.