Alessandro Vanoli: "Even today it is true that whoever controls the sea controls the world."

From Greek amphorae to industrial containers, from Zheng He to James Cook, from sirens to the kraken... Everything you want to know about the sea, the fables and truths of what humanity has been able to know, has been explained in an entertaining and informative way by the Italian historian and writer Ales History of the Sea: Myth, Culture, and Science (Ático de los Libros, 2024). Although it has 665 pages, it is an addictive book, which can be read in chronological order—from the first single-celled organisms that seem to have managed to live in the first sulfurous ocean 4 billion years ago to the yellow rubber duckies that have ended up on the great plastic "continent" that chapters depending on the reader's interest in pirates, explorers, the relationship between walrus hunting and the discovery of Greenland, or, for example, the great naval battles in history.

How do you say the sea or the sea?

— Well, since it's masculine in Italian, I've never considered it, and that's why in my head it's still a man. But it's a linguistic and cultural term, and I have no problem thinking of it as feminine. It's almost better.

But interestingly, from what appears in your book, almost all sea gods in different cultures are men. Perhaps this is because the sea is associated with war, danger, and mystery, and these seem to be very masculine themes.

— I haven't thought about it too much, but I think we need to keep in mind that, in the beginning, the sea isn't really the sea: when we talk about myths and truly ancient times, we're not talking about cultures where the sea is truly perceived as a place or a space. The sea is a boundary, a place you can't reach. That's why most of the gods and myths related to the sea are almost all very earthly. For example, the first Greek animals associated with the sea are oxen, cows, and horses. There are none that are marine. The sirens weren't fish; originally, they were birds with women's heads. It's hard to find mythical representations with marine animals at the beginning.

In fact, it's interesting to see in the book how sea monsters appear as you explore the sea.

— In a way, that's true. In fact, I think this unknown, a space as deep and vast as the sea, is the perfect space for producing dreams. It's always been this way, and I'm sure that as the sea became more navigated and explored, this gave rise to a great number of monsters, dreams, horrific and also seductive figures. But the most curious thing is that at the end of this process, when we had more knowledge and the sea could be measured in a scientific sense—we're talking about the 18th and 19th centuries—the monsters began to disappear. Because, of course, monsters also need a space in which to think and place themselves. And if you already know everything about this space, if you've mapped it, there's no longer room for sirens, for the kraken, or for the other monsters. We lost many dreams because of this ability to understand and measure space.

The book features many adventurers and explorers, from Magalhaes to the unknown Polynesian who sailed across the Pacific. Which one do you prefer?

— I'm interested in the latter, those nameless Polynesians who have a truly marvelous history, with an ability to navigate that we've already lost. We've all lost it in general. When we think of a figure, a literary one of course, like Odysseus, we're thinking of a sailor who navigated more or less like the ancient Polynesians, with that ancient ability to perceive the sea, the currents, the winds, the stars, all the signs of nature. That's gone. There are anthropologists who knew and studied the last Polynesians who could do so, but we're talking about more or less a century ago. Now they too have lost that ability. That's why I think one of humanity's greatest achievements was that almost natural ability, shared with some marine animals, to perceive the world and the sea. And well, there are other wonderful figures, of course. Magalhaes is a tragic figure; Columbus, a figure with great intelligence, and very good luck, too. But the unknown, nameless ones, I like more.

Al-Muqaddasi, a 10th-century Arab geographer, uses it to explain the harvesting of valuable red coral in the Mediterranean throughout history. Eric the Red, the legendary pirate who discovered Greenland, allows him to talk about the ivory trade from the white tusks of walruses. The salting of cod and herring allows him to explain the creation of the Hanseatic League... Often, the growth of an empire and the relations between civilizations are explained through a marine animal.

— The sea is the perfect place to understand the most important historical dynamics. And sometimes the most unknown, because we are all too focused, both in school and in universities, on our national and regional singularities. But humanity's ability to connect is always one of the most important elements of our history. It is necessary to see the world from a bird's eye view to understand all its particularities, relationships, and networks. I think this is the most interesting starting point for all the human stories that can be told.

And in all of them, the sea has been fundamental. Controlling the sea and its routes has shaped history and the power relations between cultures.

— Yes, but there have been two distinct moments in this process. All empires have felt the need to control the sea, but technologically, until the Modern Age, control of the sea was basically coastal. That is, with coastal navigation voyages and relations between islands. Because they were galleys, fairly simple vessels not designed for the open sea. Then, at the end of the Middle Ages, we began to see a major technological shift that spread from the northern countries to the south, to the Mediterranean countries, and of course, especially the Spanish, Portuguese, Catalan, and Genoese, who produced new vessels, such as longships and caravels... and thanks to these technological changes, we also began to see changes in the islands. All of this is the beginning of a fundamental change, which will ultimately open up new possibilities for travel on the open sea. It is after this process that we can say that whoever controls the sea controls the world, because that control was totally new. It was greater control, it was control of the straits and spaces that allowed travel from point A to point B as quickly as possible, and of militarily and commercially controlling the spaces, which by the end were as large as the world. But the first time something like this can be said was at the beginning of the modern age.

In ancient times, empires had fought one another to dominate the sea. The Phoenicians and Carthaginians, the Romans, the Venetians, the Turks, the Catalans, the Spanish, the Portuguese, the English. They have all fought each other for military and commercial control of maritime routes. Currently, there is conflict in the Panama Canal, the Suez Canal, the Strait of Hormuz, the China Sea... Are current wars still about control of the sea?

— Considering that almost everything travels by sea—goods, communications, energy...—yes, whoever controls the sea still controls the world. And today it's still the United States, but it's no longer like it was at the end of World War II. Everything is changing at a rapid pace. I couldn't say if all the wars we're experiencing today are related to the sea. In the Middle East, there are other problems, although there are connected elements, because there is a lot of oil and gas on the coasts of Palestine and Israel, in addition to being an important strategic location. The Houthis are fighting and trying to block the Suez Canal and the Strait of Hormuz because they know they are key points for world trade. And of course, control is now an act of war. And we can also talk about the almost physiological need of the Russians, since the time of Catherine the Great, to have access to the sea in the south, because the northern ones are small and not very functional for world trade. Not to mention the China Sea, which is a huge problem for the future, because both the Chinese and the Americans feel the need to control it. It can't be said that the sea explains everything, but it does explain key aspects of the conflicts we are experiencing today.

The great naval battles depicted in the book sometimes marked the beginning or end of an empire. In these times of rearmament, with today's technology, are they possible?

— They're neither useful nor economical, for now. Naval battles, in reality, have had a fairly short history. For centuries, in ancient times and also in the Middle Ages, they weren't really true naval battles but land battles fought at sea. That is, they were fought on ships as if they were on land. They had to get close to each other to fight. Until cannons and long-range projectiles existed, it was not possible to fire at enemy ships and, of course, at ports from afar. This was militarily useful in the contemporary age, until the First World War. It's no longer the case today. These technologies are obsolete. Drones, control of the sky and space, are fundamental points of all battles fought today, including those at sea. Control of the sky was the great qualitative leap in every sense that occurred in the mid-20th century, and control of space is the one we are experiencing now. All of this has completely changed the idea of war. And not in a good way, of course.

When he was an academic historian, his field of research was the relations between Christians, Muslims and Jews in the Mediterranean area, and now he has just published a book entitled The invention of the West. Spain, Portugal, and the invention of a culture (Ático de los Libros). How do you see this relationship between West and East?

— I must admit that I have an obsession with always working and reflecting on relationships. I believe they explain our identity and social structure much better than the most well-known historical facts. The West could be said to have been an "invention" because it was a place we had to conquer and discover. The East, however, has always been part of our history. In two different ways. On the one hand, because we have always had fundamental relationships with the exchange of spices, textiles, ideas, cultures, and philosophies. But on the other, precisely because wealth and wisdom came to us from the East, we have defined and constructed an idea of the East as a negative space, as an enemy, as the other, as someone to be conquered.

Environmental awareness comes up a lot in the book. Are you committed to it?

— Yes, even before publishing the History of the sea I had already participated in UNESCO awareness-raising activities. I am totally convinced that, beyond the wars and tragedies we are seeing, the great problem we will face in the coming years, the fundamental one, is climate change. And that is why I believe that historians, and everyone in general, must keep in mind that speaking of civilizations and culture also means speaking of nature. And if a history of the sea is written, it must be done in this sense. That is why I end the book, ironically, with the phrase that, faced with the destruction of the world they see, the wise dolphins of the The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy, by Douglas Adams, say: "Goodbye, and thanks for all the fish."