Genoa and the Sea

Highly recommended.

An excellent appetizer on the subject of early modern Genoese naval power.

This book treats a neglected subject—the maritime policy of an early modern Mediterranean state—with a new and refreshing approach.

This is an interesting and important book, not least because it rescues from near oblivion (for the English-language reader) an important Italian and Mediterranean state whose experience in the early modern era merits greater attention than it has so far received.

A valuable addition to the literature on the economic history of the Mediterranean.

Well researched and fluently written, the book is highly recommended not only for anglophone readers but to anybody.

Provides plenty of food for thought regarding early-modern Italy and hopefully will stimulate more research into how the Italian states confronted their relative political and economic decline.

Not only a valuable contribution on the history of the republic of Genoa but also a new perspective on the changing Mediterranean world and the relationship of the Mediterranean with the rest of Europe during a period of sweeping transformations.

Genoa and the Sea succeeds in reintegrating the Genoese republic with its citizen bankers, its galley slaves, its competing clans and moneyed families in a fascinating, if dense, narrative of transition and transformation... Kirk has demonstrated the rich resources available for sixteenth- and seventeenth-century Genoa, and should inspire much further research.

A refreshing approach... this book deserves to become the standard reference for maritime and economic historians of the early modern period.

An important contribution to the historiography of early modern Italy and its decline in the seventeenth century.

Well written and accessible, Genoa and the Sea merits reading by scholars and students of early modern Italy as well as by those who wish better to understand an old sea in a time of oceanic empire.

The essence of this book is Kirk's detailed understanding of the economics of shipbuilding and trade, as they affected the diplomatic and economic fortunes of the city of Genoa.