America and the Sea: A Maritime History is the most comprehensive maritime history of the United States available today. Spanning the centuries from Native American and Viking maritime activities before Columbus through today's maritime enterprise, the text provides a new history of the U.S. from the fundamental perspective of the sea that surrounds it and the rivers and lakes that link its vast interior to the seacoast. America and the Sea has been gracefully written by six prominent maritime-history scholars whose individual areas of research and teaching range from labor to technology, from the fisheries to the U.S. Navy. Their text incorporates considerations of art, literature and poetry along with discussions of the economic, political, diplomatic and technological foundations of American maritime history.