Debates between advocates of micro-history and global history often revolve around the level of detail and the scale of the unit of analysis—pointillism in a small frame as against the broad brush across a large canvas. But, of course, the two approaches are not incompatible, for a forensic analysis of an event, individual or source material can illustrate much broader issues and yield insight into the grand scheme of the human experience over time. Maritime historians often chart such a course in their enquiries into units of analysis as diminutive as single ships and cargoes, individual mariners and entrepreneurs, isolated islands and ports, and particularly comprehensive and evidence-rich archival sources—all of which can be used to present a distinctive perspective, a view from the sea, on human behaviour, societal evolution, technological change or institutional development over the longue durée. The enlightening interplay between mundane minutiae and sweeping theme is evident in this issue of the International Journal of Maritime History. Sabine Go recognises the limited scale of her subject, deploying the language of micro-history to describe the loss of the schooner Jan Maria and its cargo in 1883 as an ‘exceptional normal’ event—exceptional in that there exists a complete account of the ‘general average’ method of distributing costs of the wreck between participants in the venture, and normal in that general average was an everyday facet of the insurance business. The rare comprehensiveness of this documentary material reveals a process that had been commonplace in conveying cargoes overseas for centuries before the Torrey Canyon disaster of 1967, which, as Pham Van Tan outlines, precipitated the introduction of compulsory civil liability insurance to cover the massive costs of marine oil spills. Xabier Alberdi and Iosu Etxezarraga’s analysis of the Basque origins and sailing qualities of the Victoria, a vessel that achieved the first global circumnavigation in 1522, is another microscopic investigation that sheds light on much bigger pictures; here, we not only get a fleeting glimpse of Ferdinand Magellan—a UCI, or ‘unusually cosmopolitan individual’, as micro-historians might put it—but also inferences as to the contribution of this voyage to long-term technological change. Going one step further with regard to scaling, Achid Timmerman provides a micro-history of miniature ships to illuminate a tour d’horizon of the development of an artistic genre and the evolution of vessel technology spanning Europe over the Middle Ages. David Riggs uses evidence from the logbook of the Adventure to instill navigational and climatic details, and a touch of humanity, into a quantitative analysis of the average sailing speed of 186 vessels engaged in more or less routine voyages between Massachusetts and the West Indies during the 1750-1802 period. Also productively mixing the particular and the general, Frederick A. Belton and Robert W. Schmieder focus on the remote Pacific island of Pitcairn to chart the population dynamics of an entire species—Felis catus, the domestic cat—since Fletcher Christian and his group of exceptional normal seafarers arrived in 1790. Nils Valdersdorf Jensen also considers a species under threat in a small island in his study of the smuggling activities of sailors based in Funen (Denmark)—some of whom dare to recall their illicit business in anonymous interviews—in the 1950-1990 period. Workers are also largely faceless in the maritime industries scrutinized at the national or regional level by four contributors to this issue. Accordingly, Brenda Coffey uses digital data to calculate the profitability rate of 11,257 US whaling voyages during the nineteenth century, while Johan Joor discusses the role of Dutch fishermen in the political and economic turmoil of the Napoleonic War, Daniel Castillo examines the recruitment of West African dockers by French colonial authorities in Dakar during the First World War, and Chris Madsen establishes why and how shipbuilders on the west coast of North America increased output so dramatically before and during the Second World War. Such analyses show that perceiving maritime topics through a wide-angle lens can be just as revealing as interrogating them through a microscope.

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社论

微观历史和全球历史的倡导者之间的争论通常围绕着分析单位的细节水平和规模——小框架中的点彩画与大画布上的粗笔画。但是，当然，这两种方法并非不相容，因为对事件、个人或源材料的法医分析可以说明更广泛的问题，并随着时间的推移深入了解人类经验的宏伟计划。海事历史学家在调查诸如单个船舶和货物、个体水手和企业家、孤岛和港口以及特别全面且证据丰富的档案资料等小分析单位时，通常会制定这样的路线——所有这些都可以用来展示对人类行为、社会进化的独特视角，来自大海的看法，长期坚持。在本期《国际海事历史杂志》中，平凡的细节和广泛的主题之间具有启发性的相互作用是显而易见的。Sabine Go 认识到她的主题的规模有限，运用微观历史的语言将1883 年大篷车Jan Maria及其货物的损失描述为“异常正常”的事件——异常之处在于存在对“共同海损在风险参与者之间分配沉船成本的方法，并且在该共同海损中正常是保险业务的日常方面。这份文献资料罕见的全面性揭示了在托里峡谷之前几个世纪以来向海外运送货物的过程1967 年的灾难，正如 Pham Van Tan 概述的那样，促成了强制性民事责任保险的引入，以支付海上石油泄漏的巨额费用。Xabier Alberdi 和 Iosu Etxezarraga 对维多利亚号的巴斯克起源和航行品质进行了分析，维多利亚号于 1522 年实现了第一次环球航行，是另一项揭示更大图景的微观研究。在这里，我们不仅瞥见了费迪南德·麦哲伦（Ferdinand Magellan）——一个 UCI，或者像微观历史学家所说的“不同寻常的国际化个人”——而且还推断出这次航行对长期技术变革的贡献。在缩放方面更进一步，Achid Timmerman 提供了微型船只的微观历史，以照亮游览地平线艺术流派的发展和跨越中世纪欧洲的船只技术的演变。David Riggs 使用冒险航海日志中的证据，将航海和气候细节以及人性化的元素注入到对 186 艘在马萨诸塞州和西印度群岛之间或多或少进行例行航行的船只的平均航行速度的定量分析中。 1750-1802 年期间。Frederick A. Belton 和 Robert W. Schmieder 还富有成效地混合了特殊和一般，重点关注偏远的太平洋岛屿皮特凯恩，以绘制整个物种的种群动态——猫属，家猫——自从 Fletcher Christian 和他的一群杰出的普通海员于 1790 年抵达。 Nils Valdersdorf Jensen 在他对位于菲英岛（丹麦）的水手的走私活动的研究中，还考虑了一个小岛上受到威胁的物种——他们敢于在 1950 年至 1990 年的匿名采访中回忆起他们的非法业务。在由该问题的四个贡献者在国家或地区层面审查的海事行业中，工人也基本上是不露面的。相应地，Brenda Coffey 使用数字数据计算了 19 世纪美国 11,257 次捕鲸航行的盈利率，而 Johan Joor 则讨论了荷兰渔民在拿破仑战争的政治和经济动荡中的作用，丹尼尔·卡斯蒂略 (Daniel Castillo) 研究了第一次世界大战期间法国殖民当局在达喀尔招募西非码头工人的情况，克里斯·马德森 (Chris Madsen) 阐述了北美西海岸的造船厂在第二次世界大战之前和期间大幅增加产量的原因和方式。此类分析表明，通过广角镜头感知海洋主题与通过显微镜询问它们一样具有启发性。