This first general survey of European naval and maritime history for the period from A.D. 300 to 1500 focuses on Western Europe, including the Baltic, North Sea, and Atlantic traditions, and on the Mediterranean, particularly Byzantine and Moslem naval history. The authors survey a number of interconnected areas: the use of seapower in international and intercultural relations, commerce and trade routes, naval technology and design, military tactics, the physical features of seafaring, and the geography of the sea. They make accessible to the general reader very technical scholarship, and...