1623 Studios Podcasts

Japan, the first Asian nation to develop an export-driven economy, becomes a leader in salt water commerce. It has become the world’s third largest economy and plays an important role in international affairs.

Although Eurocentrism has been strong, some Americans, like President Theodore Roosevelt, think about a dawning Pacific era. In the early 1980s, for the first time trade flows across the North Pacific exceeded those across the North Atlantic, with shipping reflecting a changing world economy. The greatest seaports lie now on the Asian coast.

Waterfronts are no longer densely populated because ships need more space than cities can provide. Sailors now spend only hours in port instead of days. They no longer see the world. A sense of community is lost.

Ocean is no longer the only way for people to travel across oceans. The oceanic empires rapidly collapse. Nuclear power makes true submarines possible and helps open the Arctic. Bulk cargo, the container, and the internet make new complete logistics networks possible and change our lives as consumers.

Europe tears itself apart in the first half of the 20th century. Warfare becomes global and civilians suffer severely. Ocean forms both avenue for the flow of resources, goods, and people, but also for an arena. New weaponry below the surface and above it complicate war at sea.

As a triumph of the industrial revolution and its focus in the Atlantic, for the first time in history one region seemingly dominates the entire globe. Its ocean becomes a great vehicle for the flow of resources, people, and ideas. Immigration transforms cultures.

Emotion pushes war. America goes to Cuba to fight a Spanish colonial government. The war spreads to Asia and the United States becomes a colonial power stretching into the far Pacific, filled with uncertain strategic implications.

Exploiting the new age of steel, Americans use this new industry to build a modern navy although on a modest basis. Americans begin to perceive its application to international affairs.

Occupying their own West preoccupies Americans, and they do not react quickly to changing uses of the sea, which the industrial world is creating. The American merchant marine disappears.

American space and resources enabled the rise of a new presence on the international seas. Establishing a powerful place in the world of sail, the nation falls into civil war.