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O´Hara presents the first general history of Britons´ relationship with the surrounding oceans from 1600 to the present day. This all-encompassing account covers individual seafarers, ship-borne migration, warfare and the maritime economy, as well as the British people´s maritime ideas and self perception throughout the centuries.

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In this first full-scale treatment of Britain´s relationship with the surrounding oceans, Glen O´Hara examines the history of British people´s maritime lives and, in turn, the formation of British cultural identities. A lens through which to view British life, Britain and the Sea spans more than 400 years, beginning in 1600 and taking us through to the present day. Tying together every aspect in the development of Great Britain, from state formation, industrialization and modernization, through to histories of transport, migration, slavery, warfare and crime, this book illustrates how the rich tapestry of Britain´s narrative was decided not among the fields of the ´green and pleasant land´, but out at sea. The first full-scale treatment of Britons´ engagement with the sea from 1600 to the present day

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Introduction.- PART I: THE FLOWING TIDE.- Merchants.- Renegades.- Slavers.- Migrants.- Warriors.- PART II: THE EBBING TIDE.- Victories?.- Immigrants.- Collapse.- Afterglow.- Conclusion: A Star to Steer By?.

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GLEN O´HARA is Senior Lecturer in Modern History at Oxford Brookes University, UK. He is the author of From Dreams to Disillusionment: Economic and Social Planning in 1960s Britain (Palgrave 2006) and co-author of The Modernisation of Britain? Harold Wilson and the British Labour Governments of 1964-1970.

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