Seachange: Early Modern Oceanic Wars, 1588–1762

The European discovery of the northern and southern hemispheres of the Americas in the fifteenth century inaugurated the age of mercantile capitalism, opening the world’s oceans as major theatres of war, resource extraction, and imperial growth. Early modern English and Dutch poetry and drama reflect this period when European sea power collided with the weather and climate of the Little Ice Age to play roles in the destruction of the Spanish Armada (1588), the construction of the Hollandic Waterline during the Eighty Year’s War (1568–1648), and the development of Newfoundland’s Grand Banks cod-fishery as an Oceanic Plantation crucial to the emergence of the British Empire.