This review first appeared in the summer issue of “Literary Guide” (Nr 4, May/June 2023), released by the National Library of Latvia on July 6, 2023, in Latvian. For the material to be available in English as well, I’m re-posting it on the Sea Library’s blog slightly extended.
For many, the sea is associated with summer and sunny beach holidays. Tanning, swimming, sand castles, and sandy chips… Although not everyone is able to read by the sea because of the bright sun, constant rustling of the sea, and eyes busy watching over children or grandchildren, I do suggest reading about the sea whenever and wherever possible.
If I were to start creating the collection of the Sea Library today, instead of five years ago, these six books would be the first to add – the invaluable series of the Bloomsbury Academic is a cornerstone of the cultural history of the sea. What a joy that this series exists!
In six medium-sized and beautiful books, published in 2021, the reader is introduced to what the sea has meant to people throughout the ages: in Antiquity, in the Medieval Age, in the Early Modern Age, in the Age of Enlightenment, in the Age of Empire, and today.
So far, several books have been written on the subject, tackling the political and cultural history of mankind from the point of view of the sea, not land. However, such a comprehensive series has been released for the first time. In some texts of these volumes, you can notice how unexplored and exciting this endeavor is, just like the ocean itself, largely unknown. Questions rise up. Answers wash ashore. It is fun to live in a time when the Blue Humanities is gaining momentum. I’m grateful to be its wet witness, an immersed reader.
The editor-in-chief of the series is Margaret Cohen, a professor at Stanford University. (I heartily recommend reading her well-researched book “The Novel and the Sea”, 2010, about the sea in fiction.) Each of the six books has its own editor as well, who invites selected authors. Margaret Cohen is also the editor of Volume 5, “A Cultural History of the Sea in the Age of Empire”. Eight well-thought-out thematic chapters give the structure to all of the books: Knowledges, Practices, Networks, Conflicts, Islands and Shores, Travelers, Representations, and Imaginary Worlds.
For fans of the topic (the sea), such publications are an opportunity to pull out a pad and write down the names and surnames of a number of active researchers in the field to follow them in the future. Editions like these serve as (neverending) maps for what to read next.
In her introductory essay to the series, Margaret Cohen writes that, over the past thirty years, the study of the seas has emerged as a new field of inquiry in the humanities and is gaining ground*. Moreover, the sea is not just a map traversed by explorers, adventurers, passengers, migrants, and animals through the ages; the sea has always been an element that waters the imagination. Literally – an inexhaustible source of inspiration.
This can be said about many books, I know, but especially about these ones: I invite you to dive into the “Cultural History of the Sea” and cross it from Volume 1 to Volume 6.
Come on in, the water is fine!
Lasi manu apskatu par jūras kultūrvēsturei veltīto grāmatu sēriju latviski “Literatūras ceļveža” 2023. gada 4. numurā un aizņemies lasīšanai no Jūras bibliotēkas!
Thank you, Bloomsbury Academic, for donating this series to the Sea Library.
You can borrow any of these books, if interested. I also suggest borrowing books written by featured authors: “The Sea in the Greek Imagination” (2016) by Marie–Claire Beaulieu, “Ocean” (2020) by Steve Mentz, “The Novel and the Sea” (2010) by Margaret Cohen. All of these and so many others are available.
* gaining ground… – I chose this phrase and it reminded me of a book: in the “Ocean” Steve Mentz writes that our language is very land-based and that we need new words to write about the sea. “Moving offshore reshapes our vocabulary. The ocean needs new words. What happens to “grounded” metaphors when everything solid becomes liquid?”
Photos: Anna Iltnere / Sea Library
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