REVIEW ESSAY John Darwin. Unlocking the World: Port Cities and Globalization in the Age of Steam, 1830–1930; and Christina Reimann and Martin Öhman (Eds.). Migrants and the Making of the Urban-Maritime World: Agency and Mobility in Port Cities, c. 1570–1940

Abstract

When exploring a process as diverse and diffuse as globalization, it is entanglements and networks that are most prominent in characterizing the historical origins of a worldwide transformation. This process was shaped notably by waterway connections through maritime trade, shipping routes, and sea conduits. As gateways between the ocean and the coast, large maritime cities formed an entry point for people, ideas, goods, money, animals, and germs. While port cities have always been a place of interaction and interchange, during the long nineteenth century and the expansion of colonial empires, they turned into protagonists in the process of globalization. With a broad interest in history for all things global, port cities have become integral to research and scholarship on global history. Two recent publications portray port cities as a category to analyze the global through a local platform.