In the great wars of modern history, maritime powers have always prevailed over land-based empires, whether Habsburg, Napoleonic, Nazi, or Soviet.

In contrast to the rigid hierarchies and centralization of land-based empires, those nations attaining mastery at sea have been distinguished by liberty, flexibility, and enterprise. The 17th-century Dutch were the first to achieve naval and trading dominance and, exploring the effects on daily life, industry, art and thought, finance and power politics, Peter Padfield reveals the Dutch in their golden age as the heralds of modern Western society.

The British took over the Dutch system of naval, trading, and world supremacy in the 18th century and were, in their turn, displaced by the United States in the 20th. This book carries the story from the defeat of the Armada in 1588 to the American Revolutionary War and Rodney's victory.

Maritime Supremacy and the Opening of the Western Mind charts the growth of linked strengths - sea-fighting, trading, financial, and constitutional - that made empires so formidable and reveals how supremacy at sea freed thought and society itself.