The Atlantic and Pacific Worlds

The vast majority of maritime historians focus on bodies of water defined by their continental margins, even though their particular interest might be thematic rather than regional connections and coherence. Four such ocean spaces attract the attention of most maritime historians: the Atlantic Ocean, the Mediterranean Sea, the Indian Ocean and the Pacific Ocean. The Pacific Ocean is the largest by far and the only one of these four not to have a substantial body of scholarship that conceptualizes it as a coherent, inter-linked space. Pacific studies has much to offer those seeking to make the sea more prominent in history.