Maritime

Hearts of oak - but those of the Don, not John Bull. John Harbron argues for a revaluation of the expertise, both of men and materiel, which made Spain a formidable naval foe on the eve of Trafalgar.

Charles Boxer examines the impact of 1688 on Anglo-Dutch relationship with nations east of Suez.

In May of 1588, Spain's great Armada set sail, bent on the invasion and conquest of Elizabethan England. Simon Adams re-examines the strategic considerations that underpinned the actions of both England and Spain before and after the Armada.

'In the beginning, America was in the way'. Only slowly did 16th-century Englishmen turn from the chimera of a short-cut to Asia's riches to the vision of precious metals to be mined and colonies planted in the New World.

Mia Rodríguez-Salgado looks at the lives and impact of the Christian and Muslim corsairs on the early modern seas.

Maurice Collis visits the former Dutch and Portuguese port colony.

Our understanding of coral and coral reefs, believes C.M. Yonge, was greatly advanced by the voyages of Cook and Darwin to the South Pacific.

The epic voyage of this Elizabethan adventurer to Peru and his subsequent capture by its Spanish masters inspired Charles Kingsley's Westward Ho! An article by A.L. Rowse.