Analyzing To Rule the Waves: How the British Navy Shaped the

Modern World for Historical Thinking Concepts

Stephen Lerch
EDCP 585D 96a
UBC
Dr. Peter Seixas
July 20th, 2015

Analyzing To Rule the Waves: How the British Navy Shaped the
Modern World for Historical Thinking Concepts

Introduction
When I first encountered To Rule the Waves: How the British Navy
Shaped the Modern World by Arthur Herman, my older brother, a
decorated war veteran of one tour in Bosnia and three in Afghanistan,
had lent me the paperback version. You would think that an infantry
officer would have a poor collection of reading material, but I have
learned to trust his choices. As a result, from a young age, I was
exposed to many military history books, which eventually led to my
brothers degree in the subject, and my disproportionate knowledge of
the major wars. From the first two sentences I was hooked, For three
days the ships had struggled to hold their own against the hurricane.
The wind out of the southeast had howled through the masts and
rigging, tearing at their battered sails and smashing waves across their
decks (Herman 1). By the time I finished reading this historical essay,
I felt that I understood how the British navy shaped our world, that
Herman wrote his book effectively and accurately and that it was a
high-quality, legitimate historical reference was worthy of use in
schools or for reference; I was even beginning to read sections of it to
my grade 4 class, as part of our lessons on Canadian explorers.
Just the fact that this book felt more like a story than a traditional
history book, and that I read it so fast while understanding, lead me to
believe that Herman used second-order concepts when writing. These
concepts are principles used by historians today as a new way of

Analyzing To Rule the Waves: How the British Navy Shaped the
Modern World for Historical Thinking Concepts

interpreting the past and are described in The Big Six: Historical
Thinking Concepts by Seixas and Morton as Historical Significance,
Evidence, Continuity and Change, Cause and Consequence, Historical
Perspectives, and The Ethical Dimension, all references to these ideas
are taken from this book.
Evidence
Hermans whole thesis, that the British Navy Built the modern
global system by toppling the ones established by Spain and Portugal,
reshaping the world to fit its needs of access to markets, freedom of
trade, and orderly peaceful state, would not stand unless he used
proper primary sources. If you look in the back of the book, in his notes
section, you can see that he has organized his sources by chapter;
next to the sources is the page number where he used a source. In
chapter one, focusing on John Hawkins, a famous privateers, first
skirmish with the Spanish gold fleet at San Juan De Ulloa in 1568,
which is 23 pages long, Herman used 37 different sources. Of those 37
sources, 19 of them were secondary and 18 were primary. Of the
primary sources, three came from a manuscript published in another
book, one was a letter written by John Hawkins but quoted from a
secondary source, five were from an account of his life written in a
book by John Hawkins himself, one was an account of Hawkinss
crewman (John Spark) quoted from a secondary source, one was a
court deposition, six were from an account written by Job Hartop a

Analyzing To Rule the Waves: How the British Navy Shaped the
Modern World for Historical Thinking Concepts

sailor left ashore by Hawkins, later captured by the Spanish, and one
was an account from another man (Miles Phillips) who survived after
being left ashore by Hawkins.
At first glance, the sources seem impressive, but as I counted
how many primary sources Herman used, I had to account for the fact
that many of them were pulled from secondary sources. Herman did
not actually have the originals in his possession, but we can assume
that the ones he used were genuine because the secondary sources he
used would have been well scrutinized. The problem with using sources
primary obtained from a secondary source is that the original author
filtered them, so they might be subject to that authors implicit
judgement; maybe the original author purposely left out certain
primary sources in order to strengthen his or her argument. Herman
overcame this problem by using so many sources that they corroborate
with each other adding legitimacy to his writing.
Overall, I think that Herman did a satisfactory job, using
approximately half primary sources, he could have sought the
originals, but that might have been impractical. I found and read some
of his secondary sources and noticed that they often included pictures
of their primary sources; I think that he could have included some of
these, maybe some original maps, or pictures of letters.
Another criticism is that, in 50 pages of reference notes, Herman
used almost exclusively English sources. This only allows for the

Analyzing To Rule the Waves: How the British Navy Shaped the
Modern World for Historical Thinking Concepts

perspective of someone in the British Empire, but it would have been

prudent for him to add some accounts from Spanish, Portuguese, and
French sailors, as well. Herman might have been limited by what was
available to him, maybe the non-British historical actors were illiterate,
but I find that hard to believe; there must be some accounts or records
from the other empires.
To Rule the Waves was written with the goal of establishing the
historical significance of the British Navy by demonstrating that
individuals employed by the navy, and the actions of the navy had
world changing consequences. Herman employed the other secondorder concepts of Historical Significance and Cause and Consequence
very effectively to achieve his goal. This is apparent when reading the
first few chapters to do with the beginnings of the British Navy during
the 1500s and the conditions that allowed it to come into existence.
Hermans book actually covers the British Navy up until the post-WWII
era, but for the purpose of this paper, only the first few chapters will be
looked at in detail.

Historical Significance and Historical Perspective

When establishing historical significance a historian must
establish that the events resulted in change, were revealing, that they
are shown to occupy a meaningful place in a narrative, and that the

Analyzing To Rule the Waves: How the British Navy Shaped the
Modern World for Historical Thinking Concepts

significance varies over time (Siexas and Morton); Herman included all
of these throughout his book, here is a small sample of how he did it.
Herman shows how the world changed by first describing the
beginning of Englands struggle for world power through the activities
of John Hawkins and his activities around the battle at San Juan De
Ulloa in September 1568. In this incident John Hawkins, a privateer,
slave trader and eventually Admiral, was forced to moor in the harbour
of San Juan De Ulloa in the southwest corner of the Gulf of Mexico.
Hawkins and his ships had just survived a 3 day hurricane, were in
desperate need of repairs, and San Juan De Ulloa was the only harbour
nearby; Hawkins also knew that this was where the Spanish treasure
fleet would be stopping soon to pick up a load of silver bars. He
managed to sneak into the harbour and seize it before the treasure
fleet arrived. When it did come the next day, there was an uneasy
truce where Hawkins allowed the Spanish fleet to enter and set anchor.
During the night, the Spanish secretly moved troops into position to
attack attacked Hawkinss ships in the morning, a battle ensued with
the result that Hawkins and his five ships were violently driven out of
San Juan De Ulloa.
Until this moment, England had never really tried to attack any
Spanish fleets because the Spanish seemed so powerful, but Hawkinss
skirmish demonstrated that it was possible, and that Spanish ships
were vulnerable so far away from home. The book also describes how

Analyzing To Rule the Waves: How the British Navy Shaped the
Modern World for Historical Thinking Concepts

Hawkins had also been brazenly slave trading around the Caribbean at
that time without consequence, despite a ban by the Spanish empire.
After learning about Hawkinss actions, people in the British Empire
started to change their way of thinking about what was possible
overseas, and that led to a change in behaviour.
By successfully breaking Spains monopoly on the slave trade in
the Caribbean immediately before the incident at San Juan De Ulloa
and undercutting the Spanish slave traders with lower prices Hawkins
paved the way for more slave trading by British sailors. He brought
about the realization that Spanish law could be flouted and Spain was
helpless to stop anybody because of the lack of a permanent naval
presence. Following the incident at San Juan De Ulloa, other privateers
began to plan raids in the Caribbean. Hawkins himself, began to plan
regular patrols to try and catch the Spanish treasure fleet, and his
cousin, Sir Francis Drake successfully raided the mule train carrying
silver and gold from Panama City to the port of Nombre de Dios.
Through his descriptions of this time period, Herman also
revealed the motivations of men. A reader of To Rule the Waves can
easily infer that money, pride, survival, and loyalty to contracts were
all incentives that motivated brave, brutal and rash acts. For example,
after the incident at San Juan De Ulloa, which Hawkins barely survived,
he and his men had to endure a long terrible trip back to Europe
fighting starvation, scurvy, and mutiny, yet after all that, he still

Analyzing To Rule the Waves: How the British Navy Shaped the
Modern World for Historical Thinking Concepts

delivered 25, 000 golden pesos to his investors in London. Herman

actually dedicated all of chapter two to describing the conditions that
motivated sailors to live a life with such horrible conditions and
dreadful odds of survival. He explained how people, including many
famous sailors, grew up in maritime communities without many
options and a strong maritime tradition which naturally led them to a
life at sea. One rewarding motivation that drove the actions of many
men was the practice of capturing and selling slaves.
Herman used the story of Hawkins to reveal how lucrative and
essential slavery was to running empires. Without slavery, many of the
riches extracted by from the mines of Panama, Peru and Mexico
wouldnt have been used to pay off King Philip II (The King of Spain)s
debts, which he used to run his empire. Herman noted that slavery was
the largest form of commerce in the world at the time.
Slavery was a fact of life for people at the time. Hawkins got
permission to go slaving from Queen Elizabeth and was backed by a
syndicate of London merchants. By providing these facts, Herman also
used another second-order concept called Historical Perspective, which
is hard to avoid mentioning alongside Historical Significance. For
example, in chapter one, Herman described one of Hawkins slave
gathering missions where he struck a deal with some African tribal
rulers to assist him in attacking a rival tribe to enslave their population.

Analyzing To Rule the Waves: How the British Navy Shaped the
Modern World for Historical Thinking Concepts

The tribal chiefs mostly slaughtered the rival tribe instead of helping
capture them, and consumed them in a cannibal ritual.
These facts gave the perspective of the tribal rulers, who saw the
slavers as an opportunity to defeat a rival tribe. They also reveal how
brutal life was in those days, and I can only imagine the effect on the
psyche of individuals who witnessed or participated in these battles. By
reading these accounts, the decisions people made, the lengths of
peoples lives, attitudes towards danger, and value of life can be
understood better by taking the perspective of the historical actors.
One can understand the brutal decisions that privateers made, such as
when Francis Drake, Hawkinss cousin who was captaining one of the
ships during the battle at San Juan De Ulloa, pulled anchor and
disappeared the night after the battle to sail back to England. This was
after Hawkins had trustingly loaded most of his provisions, gold and
silver onto Drakes ship the Judith; Drake had left Hawkins to get back
on his own. If someone can understand how brutal life was then, and
the motivations driving people, then you can understand why Drake
left his cousin in a vulnerable position. This is the part of Historical
Perspective called Taking the Perspective of Historical Actors.
Drakes reputation was originally seen as a dashing valiant hero,
probably taken from his own account of his life, but recently a countermyth has evolved that he was as terrible and brutal man with no
morals. Herman decided to let the reader infer what Drake was like,

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Analyzing To Rule the Waves: How the British Navy Shaped the
Modern World for Historical Thinking Concepts

which was probably something in-between both extremes, by creating

a Historical Narrative of him with as many facts as possible. The use of
Historical Narrative, a part of Historical Significance, to reinforce the
perspective of historical actors and provide the reader with context,
allowed Herman to avoid presentism, the tendency to impose present
day ideas on actors of the past.
The part of Historical Perspectives that Herman fails at is, as
mentioned in the evidence section, his total lack of perspectives from
any actors that were not British. There are no accounts from Spanish,
French, Portuguese or the Slaves (who probably didnt have any
accounts anyways).
Perhaps Hermans strongest quality is that his style of writing
captures the readers imagination and attention through strong
storytelling. The whole book is written in the form of a narrative story
with well-chosen vocabulary. His superb writing ability is what we need
in todays history textbooks to grab the attention of students, and get
them excited about the topic, yet allow for factual interpretation.

Causes and Consequence and Continuity and Change

With such a broad and varied topic such as understanding how
Britons empire came into power, there are going to be an
inconceivably large amount of causes and consequences interwoven in
a web of relationships. A skilled historian must pick the most relevant

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Analyzing To Rule the Waves: How the British Navy Shaped the
Modern World for Historical Thinking Concepts

ones, which may vary in influence, and link them together in a

comprehensible way. Herman achieved this by being very organized
and writing about main causes and consequences as the big ideas in
his chapters, then telling side stories about causes or characters that
may have had smaller influences. He often revisited an earlier topic or
character in later chapters to describe unintended consequences. He
also connected many factors that might have contributed to one of his
main ideas, such as using the battle at San Juan De Ulloa to describe
factors that contributed to Englands entrance onto the world stage.
In chapter three, Herman described how the stories of Spanish
treachery from the survivors who were left ashore at San Juan De Ulloa
and men who survived the battle, spread along with stories of the
Spanish mistreatment of Native Americans and cruelties of the Spanish
Inquisition. These stories led British people to believe that the Spanish
were evil. The unintended consequence was that these stories and
beliefs made it easier for the Protestant people of England to support
their governments conflicts with the Catholic Spanish.
As a result of Hawkins excursions to the Caribbean, he became a
very rich and influential man, who was able to afford his own private
navy. By 1571, his collection consisted of sixteen ships and over 400
cannon, and became a principal part of Englands first overseas navy.
His influence allowed him to visit and gain the trust of the Spanish
Ambassador and convince him that, if Spain ever attacked England,

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Analyzing To Rule the Waves: How the British Navy Shaped the
Modern World for Historical Thinking Concepts

Hawkins would help by providing his private navy. The offer came to
fruition during the Ridolfi Plot, where the Spanish government was to
aid in attacking England, and assassinating Queen Elizabeth to replace
her with Mary the Queen of Scots. Basically, Hawkins had become
Englands first double agent and received large sums of money from
the Spanish ambassador to support the plot, which he later used to
reinvest in his navy. Hawkins was essential in foiling that plot which led
to the execution of Mary, Queen of Scots, a confirmation that King
Philip IIs of Spain was Englands enemy and a further distrust of the
Spanish. The Ridolfi Plot was a clear turning point, and by describing
these exiting events, Herman tied many causes together for a common
consequence.
With the distrust of Spain established, plus religious motivations,
Herman noted that Queen Elizabeth must have realized the importance
of a navy to protect Englands shores. At the time though, the British
Navy was miniscule compared to the well-funded Spanish navy, so
Elizabeth turned to an old trick, which was historically used if a
government couldnt afford a large navy and didnt want outright war,
state-sanctioned piracy or privateering.
The basic rules around this tradition required the king or queen
to issue a letter of marque, or letter of reprisal, which was a licence
permitting sailors to attack ships from other countries. During the
fourteenth century usually the crown received one-quarter of the prize

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Analyzing To Rule the Waves: How the British Navy Shaped the
Modern World for Historical Thinking Concepts

money, the ship owner received one-quarter and the pirate received
half. Some unseen consequences of privateering were that it placed a
lot of strain on relations between countries, it was very hard to control
or stop, and it created lawless maritime communities such as Cornwall
and Devon. There were also many factors that support Hermans points
from the behaviour of privateering, which generally meant shucking
the authority of rival countries. It led to Hawkins breaking the
monopoly of Spains slave trade, his involvement in a battle at San
Juan De Ulloa and Drakes successful attack of Spains treasure mule
train, all of which demonstrated Spains vulnerability. Again, Herman
has found a topic that links multiple factors, and supports his thesis.
Hermans fascinating discussion of piracy, which he dedicated a
chapter to and discusses throughout his book, touches on many of the
historical thinking concepts. The lives of pirates, or privateers, such as
Francis Drake, Walter Raleigh, and Hawkins are interwoven with many
of the major turning points in the British navys history. All of them
were key historical actors whos actions had many unintended
consequences, and their written accounts of what happened provide
historians with historical context, allowing the reader to take their
perspective.
The beginning of the British Navy and the downfall of the Spanish
empire are just a few of the many causes that Herman attributes to the
British navy shaping the modern world; there are too many to cover in

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Analyzing To Rule the Waves: How the British Navy Shaped the
Modern World for Historical Thinking Concepts

this essay. Herman continued to describe the progress and decline of

the British navy all the way to the end of WWII, through many periods
of history, using the same style, heavy with second-order, historical
thinking concepts and well written narrative.

Works Cited
Herman, Arthur. To Rule the Waves: How the British Navy Shaped the
Modern World. 1st ed. New York, NY: HarperCollins, 2004.
Seixas, Peter, and Tom Morton. The Big Six: Historical Thinking
Concepts. Toronto: Nelson Education Canada, 2013.