Editorial

International Journal of Maritime History, vol. 38, pp. 225–226

Abstract

The International Journal of Maritime History's second issue of 2026 contains six articles on global maritime themes based on original research and twenty book reviews.In the opening article, Lanxing Zhang studies the broader implications of the trade in medicinal materials between China and Japan between 1600 and 1900.He demonstrates that even during Japan's Era of Seclusion, Chinese vessels managed to find a market for their commodities.Nuno Saldanha, in the issue's second article, examines the work of two English shipbuilders, William and Francis Warden, who served as master shipbuilders at the Royal Shipyard in Lisbon during the first half of the eighteenth century.Father and son, he shows, played a key role in advancing the efforts aimed at the standardization of a shipbuilding typology across the Atlantic in Brazil.In an article entitled 'Shades of Intimacy in the Age of Steam', François Drémeaux explores the social impact of transoceanic travel in the nineteenth century.Examining passengers' accounts and the archives of the Compagnie des Messageries Maritimes, he argues that the constrained environment of maritime crossings disrupted passengers' sensory experiences and reshaped their intimate relationshipswith themselves, with each other and with colonial hierarchies.Hence, the ocean crossings transformed the lives of individuals long before they reached colonial societies.Karl Friedrik Poblador then studies the impact of American cabotage laws in the Philippines during the first half of the twentieth centurywhich protect elite interests to this day.Through an examination of colonial and legislative records, this contribution reveals how post-colonial interests perpetuated colonial institutions under nationalist rhetoric, sustaining high costs, weak competition and a recurring pattern of maritime disasters.The fifth article, by Adrian Harvey, examines the brief but eventful career of the British merchant George Stormont Spreckley in mid nineteenth-century Shanghai, using his experiences to illuminate complex international relations during a turbulent period in East Asia.Spreckley's roles as organizer and community leader reveal the intertwined commercial, political and military dynamics of the time, particularly during the Taiping Rebellion (1850-1864).Ultimately, Harvey argues that alliances in Shanghai were fluid and driven by profit rather than national loyalty.Spreckley emerges as a relatively honest figure navigating a volatile environment shaped by imperialism, conflict and competing interests.In the final research article, Hugo Pereira studies the gradual modernization of the Portuguese commercial and naval fleets before the First World War.He uses visual sourcesphotographsas his principal evidence, arguing in the process that photography played a key role in communicating the fleet's evolution and innovation to a wider audience, representing national progress and pride, and justifying

Authors 2

1. Cátia Antunes Aachen

   Leiden University

   Affiliation as printed

   Leiden University,The Netherlands

2. Michiel van Groesen Aachen

   Leiden University

   Affiliation as printed

   Leiden University,The Netherlands