Publisher's Synopsis
The emphasis of this work is on power - political, security and military aspects. It explores the history of the Baltic at a time when this region provided the bulk of the timber, tar, hemp, flax and pitch for the ships with which the Western maritime powers built their world trading empires. A central theme of this history of the Baltic concerns the economic penetration by these powers and their efforts to prevent the Baltic from being made into a "mare clausum".;This first volume covers the period from 1500 to the end of the 19th century.
