Although it has long been portrayed as the nation’s ‘moat defensive’, recent examinations of Anglo-French rivalry during the long eighteenth century have revealed that the English Channel was, in reality, a highly permeable and vulnerable maritime border territory. Within this context, the Channel Islands assumed a strategic and tactical significance which was vastly disproportionate to their physical size, population or resources; emerging as what Morieux terms ‘a lynchpin of control' over local shipping and trade. Although a great deal of research has been already undertaken – particularly in relation to the Channel Islands’ role as a base for commerce-raiding and intelligence gathering – much of this has covered the entire long eighteenth century. However, it was only during the Great French War that the British government embraced the military potential of the Channel Islands to the fullest; not only exploiting the inhabitants’ knowledge of the seas and intimacy with her ‘enemies’, but also transforming the archipelago into a chain of offshore fortresses. In addition, prior scholarship has often focused on individual aspects of the Channel Islands’ involvement in the Great French War; while local historians have tended to embrace the ‘Great Man’ approach, examining the period through the lens of the careers of local commanders. Consequently, this thesis seeks to provide a more complete picture of the Channel Islands’ role within Britain’s military and naval strategy; integrating an examination of local defence and security with several of already well-covered topics. Moreover, in light of the fact that existent scholarship has often centred upon ‘Great Men’, it is hoped that the thesis shall serve to better demonstrate the extent to which the celebrated achievements of Don, Doyle and D’Auvergne rested upon the efforts of a number of ‘unsung heroes’.

The Salem East India Marine Society Museum was one of the most influential collecting institutions in the antebellum United States. From 1799 to 1867, it was considered a model organization in the Union, and visitors were a reflection of American society. Though it continues today as the Peabody Essex Museum, which garners increasing national and international attention, the Society's museum is surprisingly unrecognized, understudied, or missing from contemporary scholarship. This dissertation is the first comprehensive work on the East India Marine Society Museum since 1949. To date, no scholar has made more than a cursory examination of the Society's substantial institutional archive and few individuals have recognized the significance of this museum to antebellum American culture. By applying critical museological, historical, art historical, and material culture analysis, this study will demonstrate how the Society used objects collected via international exchange to support an American identity tied to the sea. Visitors to the museum, therefore, could circumnavigate the globe, gaining both an understanding of the world and their place within it. Chapter 1 traces the East India Marine Society's history while contextualizing their museum within the landscape of American collecting institutions in the first half of the nineteenth century. Chapter 2 provides an understanding of the origins and evolution of maritime charitable societies and the influence of the Society's benevolent mission on the institution as a whole. Chapter 3 explores the Society's scientific accomplishments and its effect on the collection and display of curiosities. Chapter 4 takes an in-depth look at the men who built and maintained the Society in the nineteenth century and the development of the museum's collection through global trade. Chapter 5 examines the Society's exhibition strategy and the impact of outside consultants on the organization and display of objects. Chapter 6 focuses on nineteenth-century visitor accounts of the museum. This study concludes by illustrating how the Society and its mission remained visible through the museum's various incarnations to date, demonstrating that it was not simply a Salem institution but rather a symbol of the antebellum United States. / 2020-12-31T00:00:00Z

As the People’s Republic of China begins to accumulate influence on the international stage through strategic usage of soft power, the history and application of soft power throughout the history of China will be important to future scholars of the politics of Beijing. This study will examine Beijing and its government official’s perceptions of its soft power and how there have been historical parallels between the modern People’s Republic of China and the Ming Dynasty (1368-1644) in regard to soft power politics and China’s search for its legitimacy as a rising global power. This study will use two examples that have similar parallels: The eunuch admiral Zheng He (1371-1433) and his journey’s through the South China Sea, the Indian Ocean and the Middle East and the Confucius Institute, a teaching and cultural exchange program under the auspices of the Office of Chinese Language International, known colloquially as Hanban, an organization under the direct control of the Chinese Communist Party’s leadership. What connects these two topics is the subject of soft power, a term coined by Joseph S. Nye, relating to the kind of power wielded by countries that does not involve military force and uses a “Charm Strategy” to support favorable treatment amongst its trading partners. Zheng He sailed the oceans to neighboring countries, in an attempt to give legitimacy to Ming China through the imperial tribute trade system. The Confucius Institute continues that legacy today, teaching a view of China that is shaped in Beijing. I will show the parallels between this historical figure and that of the Confucius Institute, showing that the pursuit of soft power is not a recent phenomenon in Chinese politics but a theory and a motivation that has existed in China since medieval times in China’s endless search for legitimacy in the eyes of its neighbors. I will be researching the life and journeys of Zheng He, along with the controversies surrounding the Confucius Institute and how all of these factors relate to China attempting to re-instate a legacy that the nation has was lost over since the nineteenth century’s “Century of Humiliation”. This loss of prestige was a result of European colonial power’s ambitions in the area. I will also use evidence to prove the importance of Confucianism in regard to the development of soft power in China. As China seeks to find its legitimacy, we will see that this has been some centuries in the making and plays a crucial part of Chinese politics today. The re-assertion of China’s place in the world as a rising world power will have geopolitical implications for decades to come.

Master of Arts / This work is the history of a particularly singular and strong human enterprise. Until the advent of several more recent interpretative works, Australian transport historiography has heavily emphasised engineering and operational development without examining the contextual social and economic forces. The Manly Ferry, with its unique contribution to the history of Sydney's development as a suburban city, provides a distinctive microcosmic example with which to illustrate the evolution of an urban society - with its emphasis on mobility - in the wake of the industrial revolution.

Master of Arts / This work is the history of a particularly singular and strong human enterprise. Until the advent of several more recent interpretative works, Australian transport historiography has heavily emphasised engineering and operational development without examining the contextual social and economic forces. The Manly Ferry, with its unique contribution to the history of Sydney's development as a suburban city, provides a distinctive microcosmic example with which to illustrate the evolution of an urban society - with its emphasis on mobility - in the wake of the industrial revolution.

Divided into three parts, this thesis maps a cultural history of Barbary captivity; concentrating on the early 17th century leading up to the Civil Wars; an aspect of British-Muslim contact within which the West Country is overrepresented in the archives. However, this wealth of material contrasts sharply with the paucity of popular and public-facing representations. Situating these accounts within wider contexts, this thesis investigates this contrast, exploring the social, cultural, emotional and economic impact of Barbary captivity upon understandings of place and identity. The first part examines representations of being taken captive, the terror and distress of West Country inhabitants, and the responses and concerns of the authorities. The on-going failure to protect the region and its seafarers exacerbated this distress, producing marginalised geographies of fear and anxiety. The second part explores the themes of memory and identity, arguing that how captives were remembered and forgotten had implications for localised and national identities. For those held in Barbary, families and communities petitioned and undertook ransom collections to redeem the captives, providing reminders to the authorities and appealing for wider remembrance as part of the processes of Christian compassion. Nevertheless, the majority of captives were ‘forgotten’, neither ransomed nor leaving their individual mark within the historical record. This part concludes with a discussion of the role of memory in managing and articulating the ‘trauma’ of captivity. The final part examines mobile and fluid identities, concentrating on returning captives and Islamic converts. Early modern theories of identity situated the humoral body of the captive as susceptible to ‘turning Turk’, contributing to wider negotiations of national, ethnic and religious identities. Cultural anxieties were preoccupied with the ill-defined borders of the geographically displaced material body, generating mutable, hidden and shameful identities. In conclusion, sites of cultural trauma are produced, indicated by the subsequent silence regarding this aspect of localised history.

This thesis explores the role of Euromerican maritime tattoos in Herman Melville’s early sea fiction. Through layers of historic and scholarly obfuscation, Euromerican maritime tattoos have been delimited to a marginal role in the cosmopolitan shipboard culture of 19th-century Pacific whaling and trade networks. This project extracts and contextualizes that cultural practice as formative in the creation of sailors’ hybrid embodied identities. With this intervention in mind, Euromerican maritime tattooing emerges as a small but important feature in Melville’s first six books. Probing issues such as race, class, slavery, and colonialism, this project deploys an intimate reading practice, which seeks to engage Melville from within the text. Tattoos serve as a symbol by which he grapples with larger social formations. Through prolonged engagement with marked bodies, Melville unfurls a cast of characters who demonstrate how identity is shaped by the various domineering axes of modernization. He also reveals how a series of interconnected and somewhat autobiographical first-person narrators strive to find embodied alternatives to the violent forms of exploitation alive in the colonial Pacific and interconnected 19th-century global shipping networks. Ultimately, this project seeks to think, feel, and read alongside Melville to gain insight into how he made sense of the world. Through the lens of tattoos in his early sea fiction, Melville reveals the power of interrelation, the human potential to defy subjugation, and charts a path toward new social embodiments. Disclaimer: The views expressed in this thesis are those of the author and do not reflect the official policy or position of the United States Air Force, United States Space Force, Department of Defense, or the U.S. Government.

Si l'institution d'un Consulat de la mer à Civitavecchia en 1742 s'inscrivait avec retard dans un mouvement de réappropriation de l'exercice de la justice, l'événement symbolisait à la fois les prétentions romaines en matière de mercantilisme et les contradictions de son application pratique. Cette création institutionnelle devait en effet composer avec une ambigüité propre aux ports francs : être à la fois une porte d'entrée au commerce international et le filtre des échanges étrangers. Dans un contexte où le commerce ‘actif' devenait la ligne politique du pouvoir, le quotidien des acteurs économiques s'apparentait plutôt à une réinterprétation sociale des règles locales. Les agents institutionnels étaient en effet très souvent liés aux protagonistes du commerce. Acteurs économiques et institutions étaient alors à même d'incarner les normes avec un haut niveau de flexibilité. À ce titre, dans un contexte de création et d'affirmation d'une identité ‘étatique', l'insertion initiale des capitaines étrangers par l'intermédiaire de l'appareil normatif réglant les trafics maritimes romaines concrétisait la patiente accumulation de savoirs informels et la construction d'un réseau d'intermédiaires stratégiquement positionnés. Des savoirs qui furent un tremplin professionnel et économique mêlant pluriactivité et stratégies d'interprétation institutionnelle. Jouant en effet sur leur condition de stranieri ayant la capacité d'agir comme sudditi pontifici, ces capitaines et marins devinrent par la suite des opérateurs marchands économiquement profitables et incontournables. / If the creation of the Consolato del mare court of Civitavecchia in 1742 was the late expression of an ancient and global movement for the restoration of a State-controlled justice, it also epitomizes the pontifical contradiction in the application of mercantilism. This institution was however facing the free ports ambiguity: at the same time opened to international trade and supposed to screen foreign activity. Above all, the mercantilist political context pushed the economic actors to a daily reinterpretation of local rules. Indeed, institutional agents were usually connected with the protagonists of trade. Therefore, economic actors and institutions were able to enforce justice with a high degree of flexibility. As such, in a context of creation and assertion of a State identity, the initial insertion of foreign captains by the means of normative apparatus regulating papal maritime trade gave concrete expression to the slow accumulation of informal skills and the development of a network of strategically positioned go-betweens. Such skills revealed to be a professional and economic stepping stone, combining diversified activities and institutional interpretation strategies. Using their condition of stranieri, with the ability to act as sudditi pontifici, these captains and seamen became economically profitable and crucial merchant actors.

Au XIXe siècle, la construction navale traditionnelle constitue une importante branche de l'économie maritime provençale. Elle est surtout l'affaire d'entreprises privées et n'est pas un simple prolongement des pratiques du passé. Marquée par des caractères originaux, elle est le fruit de ses capacités à évoluer en s'adaptant aux demandes des marchés. La hiérarchie des chantiers privés change au fil du siècle. Si Marseille reste le foyer majeur, les productions traditionnelles de La Ciotat et de La Seyne marquent le pas, celles de Toulon, Arles et Antibes stagnent ; à Saint-Tropez elles connaissent un réel essor, avec la livraison de grosses unités, tandis qu'à Martigues elles dominent le marché des bâtiments de petit cabotage. Cette évolution s'accompagne d'une modification des modèles construits. Pour les navires de fort tonnage, les types méditerranéens polacre, pinque, barque et brigantin laissent rapidement la place aux formes atlantiques brick, brig-goélette et trois-mâts. Seule la bombarde, purement méridionale, résiste jusque dans les années 1830 alors que l'emblématique tartane, trop souvent confondue avec le bateau, ne représente plus qu'une petite part de la production. Sur ces chantiers, les ouvriers – dont la diversité et la mobilité sont difficiles à atteindre travaillent dans des espaces dont les infrastructures modestes se rationalisent pour peu que l'administration des Ponts et Chaussées, nouvelle gestionnaire des terrains, puisse ou veuille répondre aux demandes des constructeurs. / During the 19th century, traditional shipbuilding was an important branch of the Provencal maritime economy. It is mostly the business of private companies and is no longer only an extension of practices from the past. Marked by original characters, it is the fruit of its capacities of evolving whilst adapting itself to the market's demands. The hierarchy of the private construction sites changes throughout the century. If Marseille stays the major outbreak, the traditional productions of La Ciotat and of La Seyne mark time, the ones in Toulon, Arles and Antibes stagnate; in Saint-Tropez they know a true development, with the delivery of large units, whilst in Martigues they dominate the market of small coasting trade ships. This evolution is accompanied by a modification of the constructed models. For large vessels, the Mediterranean types, polacre, pink, bark and brigantine quickly leave place to the Atlantic shapes brig, brig-schooner and three-masted vessel - only the Bomb-vessel, purely Mediterranean, resists until the 1830's, while the iconic tartan too often confused with the boat, represents only a small part of the production. On these construction sites, the workers – whose diversity and mobility are difficult to reach - work in spaces with modest infrastructures which rationalize themselves, for little that the administration of Roads and bridges, new land manager, would be able or willing to meet the demands of manufacturers.

Ce travail porte sur les pratiques sociales et la politisation des ouvriers de l'arsenal de Toulon à la fin de l'époque moderne et durant la Révolution française, pour comprendre, par « en bas », comment naît un collectif nouveau : la classe sociale. Cette étude s'appuie sur des archives peu ou pas utilisées en histoire navale. Les sources médicales, judiciaires et notariées, sans négliger les correspondances officielles et les registres matriculaires ou cadastraux, permettent de découvrir toutes les dimensions, individuelles et collectives, des comportements quotidiens des travailleurs toulonnais. À partir des années 1760, les nouveaux rapports d'autorité dus à l'apparition du contremaître et de l'ingénieur, et la mise en oeuvre du libéralisme économique obligent les ouvriers à reformuler les contours de leur identité laborieuse basée sur les routines des chantiers et les expériences en mer. En revanche, la forte proportion de Méridionaux, la puissante reproduction sociale et la ségrégation socio-spatiale à l'intérieur de la ville perpétuent la dimension communautaire des ouvriers de l'arsenal. C'est dans le champ politique, au cours de la Révolution, que leurs pratiques et leurs représentations sont le plus profondément bouleversées. Ils participent alors à l'organisation du port, s'approprient les sections urbaines pour tenir leurs assemblées et accentuent une implication citoyenne par des modes de participation spécifiques qui transforment leur recherche d'économie morale en économie populaire politique. Notre thèse montre donc que la Révolution française a permis la constitution d'un collectif prolétaire et son insertion dans le monde contemporain des luttes sociales. / This work focuses on social practices and politicization of workers in the arsenal of Toulon at the end of the modern era and during the French Revolution in order to understand, from below, how comes a new group: the class. This study is based on few or no archives used in naval history. By analysing medical sources, judicial and notarized without neglecting official correspondence and matriculaires or land registers, we can discover all aspects of the daily behavior of workers in the dockyard of Toulon. From the 1760s, workers must reformulate the contours of their identity based on their laborious routines on docks and their experiences at sea because of the appearance of the foreman and engineer which enforces new authority reports, and of the implementation of economic liberalism. In contrast, the proportion of Southerners, the powerful social reproduction and socio-spatial segregation within the city perpetuate the community dimension of the workers of the arsenal. In fact, their practices and representations are most profoundly affected in the political field, during the Revolution. They participate in the organization of the port, the urban sections are used to hold their meetings and their citizen involvement is amplified by specific modes of participation that are transforming their search for moral economy in popular political economy. Therefore thesis shows that the French Revolution led to the establishment of a proletarian class and its inclusion in the contemporary world of social struggles.