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Vikings is that they went to sea and even went so far as to allegedly reach North America 1,000 years ago.

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JJMt said:

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A lot of people have believed that seapower is one of the most critical aspects to history. Alfred Thayer Mahan is the most well known proponent of that thesis. See, e.g., https://study.com/academy/lesson/the-influence-of-sea-power-upon-history-summary.html

However, that begs the question as to why certain countries developed sea power and others didn't. Geography obviously plays a critical role. However, religion and world view do as well. It's interesting to note that in Europe, although the southern Catholic countries started with the largest navies, the smaller northern Protestant countries ended up being the dominant sea powers. My guess is that their Protestant world view contributed to a decentralized form of government, which favored free enterprise and free trade, which led to a strong private, merchant fleet, which led to a strong navy that also allowed autonomous command.

Anyway, that's a long discussion for another day. Your question is a great question, though.

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BQ78 said:

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The Tamils, the Polynisians, Phonecians and Arabs beg to differ on the Mediterranean and Northern Europe thing.

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JJMt said:

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A lot of people have believed that seapower is one of the most critical aspects to history. Alfred Thayer Mahan is the most well known proponent of that thesis. See, e.g., https://study.com/academy/lesson/the-influence-of-sea-power-upon-history-summary.html

However, that begs the question as to why certain countries developed sea power and others didn't. Geography obviously plays a critical role. However, religion and world view do as well. It's interesting to note that in Europe, although the southern Catholic countries started with the largest navies, the smaller northern Protestant countries ended up being the dominant sea powers. My guess is that their Protestant world view contributed to a decentralized form of government, which favored free enterprise and free trade, which led to a strong private, merchant fleet, which led to a strong navy that also allowed autonomous command.

Anyway, that's a long discussion for another day. Your question is a great question, though.

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JJMt said:

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The new world was first explored and developed by Spain and Portugal, both southern European Catholic countries. And Christopher Columbus was an Italian sailing in service of Spain. And the sailing routes in India and the spice trade was also pioneered by the Portuguese.

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Yep, an interesting question is why the southern European Catholic countries did not follow up on their early advantages in sea power and trade, but surrendered their lead to much smaller countries such as England and Holland.

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JJMt said:

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A lot of people have believed that seapower is one of the most critical aspects to history. Alfred Thayer Mahan is the most well known proponent of that thesis. See, e.g., https://study.com/academy/lesson/the-influence-of-sea-power-upon-history-summary.html

However, that begs the question as to why certain countries developed sea power and others didn't. Geography obviously plays a critical role. However, religion and world view do as well. It's interesting to note that in Europe, although the southern Catholic countries started with the largest navies, the smaller northern Protestant countries ended up being the dominant sea powers. My guess is that their Protestant world view contributed to a decentralized form of government, which favored free enterprise and free trade, which led to a strong private, merchant fleet, which led to a strong navy that also allowed autonomous command.

Anyway, that's a long discussion for another day. Your question is a great question, though.

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4. The Vikings are proof that mere navigation doesn't make you powerful. Yes, they were feared and robbed, plundered, etc. but theirs was a fragile society that could not really build up anything enduring.

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is a Viking that quits living a life of raiding & pillaging still a Viking?

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Apache said:

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4. The Vikings are proof that mere navigation doesn't make you powerful. Yes, they were feared and robbed, plundered, etc. but theirs was a fragile society that could not really build up anything enduring.

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Excellent post, but I gotta take issue with this one. The Vikings, strictly speaking, didn't build up anything. They were master traders for sure... skins from Greenland were sold in Constantinople. However, it wasn't until the Vikings began to settle down they came into their own. I suppose the argument is sort of semantics... is a Viking that quits living a life of raiding & pillaging still a Viking?

Case in point: the Vikings seized the northern coastline area of France, intermarried with the local Frankish population & voila... became something referred to as the Normans. (Slang for "Northmen") The Normans conquered Sicily & half of Italy and set up an important trading kingdom there. From there they fought both with and against the Byzantine Empire & virtually everyone else in the region. The first Crusade was led by a Norman.... and there was the whole Norman invasion of England thing. Ireland also fell under their sway. Everywhere they went they absorbed the local culture creating something new.

The Viking are similar to the Mongols in this aspect. Master warriors & traders, but on their own they weren't that impressive in terms of legacy or culture. Add a little Viking or Mongol to your China, your India, your Sicily, your England... and you get something pretty special.

You might say they are the "Gin" in your "Tonic & Lime". On their own, unpalatable and harsh. With the right mix, it becomes something altogether different.

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WestAustinAg said:

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JJMt said:

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The new world was first explored and developed by Spain and Portugal, both southern European Catholic countries. And Christopher Columbus was an Italian sailing in service of Spain. And the sailing routes in India and the spice trade was also pioneered by the Portuguese.

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Yep, an interesting question is why the southern European Catholic countries did not follow up on their early advantages in sea power and trade, but surrendered their lead to much smaller countries such as England and Holland.

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Columbus discovering the Americas is just one step in a long line of sailing adventurers who had gradually sailed farther and farther down the African west coast.

I believe that those countries who were willing to spend the most in hopes of finding more gold or resources (people to enslave) were the countries that eclipsed the countries that navigated so much of the world earlier.

One last item - aren't we forgetting the huge navy that China created - navigating as far west as Africa (for sure). They did this long before other countries did this - but one emperor burned the fleet and decided to turn the countries attention to internal matters.

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JJMt said:

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The new world was first explored and developed by Spain and Portugal, both southern European Catholic countries. And Christopher Columbus was an Italian sailing in service of Spain. And the sailing routes in India and the spice trade was also pioneered by the Portuguese.

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Yep, an interesting question is why the southern European Catholic countries did not follow up on their early advantages in sea power and trade, but surrendered their lead to much smaller countries such as England and Holland.

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aalan94 said:

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Howdy folks. Just got back from Afghanistan, so getting on here again. A lot of good things have been raised, but let me address a couple of key points I think should be brought into discussion.

1. It's not maritime, so much as trade, that drove successful nations. Trade is, and has always been, the key source of wealth, and therefore of power. Trade is often maritime, but not always.
2. China developed a large empire with sophisticated road networks, river travel, etc. So they basically got the trade internally (to some degree, this is what fueled the U.S. internal development after the constitution).
3. Just about every war is ultimately about trade or has a serious trade undertone. Crusades? Ha, you just thought it was about Christianity. No, the real reason is that the growth of Islam shut down the Silk Road. So the Europeans went to war to open up this vital trade network and they ultimately failed. So they took an end-run around the blockage to the East by sailing West. Hence the development of North America.
4. The Vikings are proof that mere navigation doesn't make you powerful. Yes, they were feared and robbed, plundered, etc. but theirs was a fragile society that could not really build up anything enduring.
5. The original poster (or someone else, can't recall), dismissed the Phoenecians and just lumped them in with the Mediterranean. The problem is that the Mediterranean cultures were very different, particularly the Phoenecians. But they did all benefit from trade.
6. Coming off this last point, it's not necessarily the ships, but the speed, that makes trade so powerful. Generally through history, shipping is dramatically cheaper than land routes, but not always when you add in pirates, poor navigation equipment, etc.
7. As for why the Catholic countries, with the early lead, surrendered it to the smaller countries, there are a few interesting points. The Spanish and Portuguese hit the lottery, and as any lottery winner proves, winning the lottery makes you fat and happy. It also makes you lazy. They turned their efforts to extracting minerals, which is not in and of itself a bad thing, but it only gives you wealth, not trade. That's like a government stimulus program, just dumps money into the economy, but doesn't create the ripple effects that true economic development does. Spain (and I've been focusing on this for the last year or so) was purely exploitive and did nothing to develop its colonies as markets for anything but luxury goods for the wealthy planters.
England, on the other hand, rolled the dice and got crap. Its colonies had no wealth, so they had to create it, which they did more because they were left alone than because England invested in them.
8. Holland has a lot of interesting things going on. Not the least of which is a large Jewish populations. For lots of real reasons (in addition to the conspiracy theory ones), Jews have always been leaders in trade. That and the country's natural facing towards the sea was very important in developing their trade.
9. Continental countries lacked the unity of China (except France) to develop internal trade, and it stunted their growth. As France started being outstripped by England in trade, they sought to create a continental system of trade to compete. Ultimately it failed because it was created at the point of a bayonet and in hostile opposition to England, which responded by blockading it.

I'd probably summarize thusly: Mahan is right to a point. Maritime power is a very important means to an end, but it's not the end. Trade is the end.

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JJMt said:

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I don't understand the distinction you're trying to make. When something is "wrested" from another, doesn't the other person at some point have to "surrender" that something? Don't both words, in this context, essentially mean the same thing?

The question I'm trying to ask is how and why the much smaller and poorer countries of England and Holland passed the larger and much wealthier countries of Spain and France, and of the city states of Italy before them??

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