There’s a posh gallery on my building’s ground floor. Not long ago, I noticed paintings in one window had been replaced by maps.
The maps - a thousand dollars each - date from just after the Great War. Apart from empires long vanished, most interesting are the ‘Principal Water Routes’. The dark blue lines show when West European countries and the United States dominated world trade. With apologies for the reflection, click on the second picture and compare the considerable transatlantic, with limited transpacific, traffic. Then think about today's imports from China to North America.
Bringing home the groceries, I often stop to examine the maps. I don’t have space for one on a wall, but they did encourage me to go to back to sea.
Little better illustrates globalization than a circumnavigation. Sea lanes are maritime highways for the world’s supply chain and shipping reflects the international economy. The countries I will visit and pass, the waters that will bear me are headline fodder - war, terrorism, refugees, competition for political influence, food and resources. The voyage will not lack possibilities for a tale or two.
