The Channel: England, France and the Construction of a Maritime Border in the Eighteenth Century

Rather than a natural frontier between natural enemies, this book approaches the English Channel as a shared space, which mediated the multiple relations between France and England in the long eighteenth century, in both a metaphorical and a material sense. Instead of arguing that Britain's insularity kept it spatially and intellectually segregated from the Continent, Renaud Morieux focuses on the Channel as a zone of contact. The 'narrow sea' was a shifting frontier between states and a space of exchange between populations. This richly textured history shows how the maritime border was imagined by cartographers and legal theorists, delimited by state administrators and transgressed by migrants. It approaches French and English fishermen, smugglers and merchants as transnational actors, whose everyday practices were entangled. The variation of scales of analysis enriches theoretical and empirical understandings of Anglo-French relations, and reassesses the question of Britain's deep historical connections with Europe.

Winner, 2017 Leo Gershoy Award, American Historical Association

'Morieux offers a useful corrective to the new British history or 'archipelagic studies', whose challenge to Anglocentric history has a tendency to overlook Europe. It’s a cliché to say a book is timely, but in the midst of another debate on borders this book presents a bigger picture.'

Willy Maley Source: Times Higher Education

'Morieux’s work here indicates in exemplary fashion how much more difficult to define was the political and juridical status of a murky, evershifting, and often downright dangerous stretch of water. Morieux repeatedly plays off the overlaps and tensions between the economic and political realms, noting further in the conclusion how merchants might balance natal allegiance with naturalization elsewhere.'

David Andress Source: The American Historical Review

‘A rich and rewarding text, based on extensive research on both sides of la Manche, The Channel opens new perspectives on the sea as a connection, and the fluidity of maritime space.’

Andrew Lambert Source: International Journal of Maritime History

'… a powerful antidote and alternative perspective to those who see Anglo-French relations only through the prism of conflict. It is a profoundly optimistic view and in that, as much as in the subject it deals with, it is a timely and welcome intervention.'

John McAleer Source: The English Historical Review

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The Channel

England, France and the Construction of a Maritime Border in the Eighteenth Century

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