Tag: News

The Organizing Committee appointed by the International Maritime History Association invites proposals for panels and papers to be presented at IMHA’s 8th International Congress of Maritime History in Porto, to be hosted by CITCEM – U. PORTO (Transdisciplinary Research Centre Culture, Space and Memory – University of Porto) on June 30 – July 03, 2020.

The main theme will be “Old and New Uses of the Oceans”, and the aim is to investigate the many aspects of the relationship between humans and the oceans. We sail the surface of the oceans, harvest their resources, and exploit the minerals on and under the ocean floor. The oceans are also used as inspiration, for literature and other forms of art, and they shape relations among humans – both distant and close ones.

As with previous congresses, ICMH8 adopts a broad concept of maritime history, treating it as an interdisciplinary field that covers all historical periods and areas and all aspects of humankind’s relationship with the sea.
Papers will be welcome on a wide range of research areas reflecting people and their activities and interest in, on, around and under the waters of the world. The Organizing Committee also welcomes proposals for full panels and roundtables.

The Congress theme provides opportunities for researchers to share their work with colleagues in their various areas of interest and with researchers in adjoining fields.

Participants are invited to submit a short proposal in English indicating the scope of their intended paper, panel or roundtable, plus short biographical notes for all prospective participants.

Papers from the Congress will be considered for publication by the International Maritime History Association in its International Journal of Maritime History.

The official website of the Congress is https://imha2020.com/

 

https://journals.sagepub.com/toc/IJH/current

Table of Contents

Volume 31 Issue 1, February 2019

 

Editorial

David J. Starkey

Articles

The first voyage of Giovanni da Empoli to India: Mercantile culture, Christian faith, and the early production of knowledge about Portuguese Asia

Matteo Salonia

Quo patet orbis Dei: Dutch Deputies for maritime affairs and their global network in the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries

(Leon) van den Broeke, J.C.A. (Joost) Schokkenbroek

Profits from under the water: The international blubber market, Russian monopolistic companies and the idea of whaling development in the eighteenth century

Alexei Kraikovski

The anti-piracy activities of the Nguyen Dynasty in the South China Sea, 1802–1858

Nguyen Thi My Hanh

Chr. Christensen and C. A. Larsen: A comparative analysis of two whaling entrepreneurs

Bjørn L. Basberg

Sibling rivalry, shipping innovation and litigation: Henry Burrell and the ‘Straightback Steamship’

Martin Bellamy

When does war end? Armistice and the Prize Courts of the twentieth century

Sarah Craze

From wooden pigeons to Telstar: Precursors of modern maritime satellite communications

Dimov Stojce Ilcev

The development of maritime satellite communications since 1976

Dimov Stojce Ilcev

Book Reviews

Establishment of the new Centre of Maritime History at the Institute for Mediterranean Studies
The Institute for Mediterranean Studies of the Foundation of Research and Technology – Hellas based in Rethymnon, Crete, Greece, announces the foundation of a new Centre for Maritime History Studies headed by the Director of the IMS/FORTH Professor Gelina Harlaftis. The aim of the Centre is to expand research on a broad range of topics of Maritime History related to the areas of the Mediterranean, the Black Sea and beyond, having the global, interdisciplinary and comparative studies in the epicenter.
The Centre will provide the necessary resources for young and experienced scholars to carry out their research in a stimulating and encouraging environment. Among these resources will be digital data bases and archives, a specialized library, and a cohesive and experienced group of researchers working in maritime history. Furthermore, the Center will devote funding resources to attract talented Ph.D. students who are willing to pursue research on maritime history. The Centre will also organize workshops, conferences and lectures in order to provide academic meetings on a regular basis and opportunities for scholars to discuss research problems and questions and exchange ideas for further research development.
The first workshop titled “What is Maritime History?” to be organized by the new Centre will take place on 25-26 April 2018 where leading maritime historians will inaugurate the Centre and will discuss developments in Maritime History in the last 20 years.
The new Center of Maritime History in Crete already hosts two ongoing research projects of IMS/FORTH in Maritime History.
The first is the ERC STG 2016 project entitled “Seafaring Lives in Transition. Mediterranean Maritime Labour and Shipping during Globalization, 1850s-1920s”, directed by Dr Apostolos Delis in partnership with the Universities of Barcelona, Genoa and Aix-Marseilles, and will last from 2017 to 2021. It is worth noting that Dr Apostolos Delis is the first Greek historian to have received an ERC grant. The project explores the transition from sail to steam navigation and the effects of this technological innovation on seafaring populations in the Mediterranean and the Black Sea, between the 1850s and the 1920s, whose lives were drastically changed by the advent of the steam.
The second project is entitled “Onassis Business History” and is directed by Gelina Harlaftis, with post-doc Dr Alexandra Papadopoulou, and will run during the period 2017-2020. The project is funded by the Onassis Foundation. It is rather impressive that despite the global reach of Aristotle Onassis, there is not one extensive study of his business edifice based on archival materials and not one to analyze the scope and impact of his entrepreneurial activity in Greece or abroad, either of his shipping business, or of Olympic Airways. In this way, the aim of this research project is twofold: the creation of the Onassis Archive and the writing of Onassis Business History.

Mechanisms of Global Empire Building in the First Global Age, edited by Amélia Polónia
and Cátia Antunes, 2017.
This book maps out the crucial mechanisms of global empire building during the Early Modern period and poses at center stage global exchanges between, across and among individuals and empires. The book focuses on instances in which individuals or groups systematically looked for ways to connect beyond the territorial and institutional limitations imposed by their respective empires. In doing so, it showcases a set of clear mechanisms of individual and collective agency. They challenged, cooperated with, or represented imperial interests, in what should be perceived as a sliding scale of individual behaviours and motivations, rather than an absolute stance run by central powers. How did people connect empires and what happened to empires as a result? How did individual and collective agency contribute to the constitution of global maritime empires during the Early Modern period?

This book will answer these questions by looking at the role individuals played in the construction of ‘informal empires’, resulting from the enactment of a multitude of self-organized networks operating world-wide, whose main goal was safeguarding their personal social and economic advantages, sometimes cooperating with formal powers, frequently regardless of (and in spite of) state intervention.