Abstract
The Atlantic, Indian, and Pacific Oceans and the Mediterranean Sea are no longer studied as distinct oceanic regions but interrogated as variegated worlds, interconnected in multiple ways. This Forum explores the various ways in which maritime history has been dealing with this trend. It shows how the notion of oceans as interactive spaces requires maritime historians to look beyond the shoreline by placing the interconnectedness of sea and land at the centre of their analysis. Focusing on littorals and port cities, the five papers in this Forum investigate the sea as zone of cultural encounter and vehicle of social and economic exchanges, and thereby illustrate how oceans connected people and ideas across the globe.
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