Our faith in democracy, personal freedoms and human 'rights', and the other comforting prescriptions of the humanist liberal credo stem from the supremacy of maritime over territorial power. Pragmatists may deplore this as crude determinism, as another vain attempt to… — Peter Padfield Copy Share
Wealth from trade was the mainspring of Western material advance; the visible agents of change were great guns. These came of age in Europe… — Peter Padfield Copy Share Image
Our faith in democracy, personal freedoms and human 'rights', and the other comforting prescriptions of the humanist liberal credo stem from the supremacy of maritime over territorial power. Pragmatists may deplore this as crude determinism, as another vain attempt to construct a general theory of history. They should reflect on the sort of political philosophy and structures we might now… — Peter Padfield Copy Share
It is clear that the flame of True Freedom had passed with naval supremacy and constitutional, consultative government from the United Provinces to Great… — Peter Padfield Copy Share Image
The reason territorial monarchs failed time after time against maritime powers was not that absolutist, non-consensual governments were incapable of building great fleets in peace - quite the reverse - but that they were unable to fund them in the crises of war. Mainly this was because they were forced to divert resources from the fleet to their armies, to… — Peter Padfield Copy Share
Philip could not have wanted to annex England militarily, since this would have opened another costly occupation struggle, and brought France in against him.… — Peter Padfield Copy Share Image
