Britain as a maritime civilisation: economy, culture and place in the making of a seafaring nation

Civilisation, the Oxford English Dictionary tells us, is: "The culture, society, and way of life of a particular country, region, epoch or group". How do we define and distinguish between different civilisations across time and geography? In this paper I argue that Britain, from about the Tudor sixteenth century, was overwhelmingly characterised as a maritime civilisation. Shipping and the sea permeated through all aspects of British life - economic, social, cultural, political, and geographic.