BOOK ABOUT SEA POWER AND MARITIME CULTURE

The TLS [May 10, 2019 page 27] had a most interesting article about this book.

Seapower States

Maritime Culture, Continental Empires and the Conflict That Made the Modern World
by Andrew Lambert, Yale University Press, 2018.

The book:   Seapower States by Andrew Lambert

The Times Literary Supplement article (written by Edward N Luttwak) is here:

The TLS article:    TLS article on Seapower States book by Andrew Lambert

Basically:

Supremacy at sea was not necessarily about all about battles... supremacy "conceded ocean by ocean"... "building maritime alliances".

He talks about 'naval powers' (e.g. land locked countries which have a navy*)  and 'sea powers' e.g. Athens, Carthage, Venice, the Dutch Republic, and Britain,

He concludes that sea power was, and still is*, a question of maritime culture.  

He demonstrates how creating maritime identities made these states more dynamic, open, and inclusive than their lumbering continental rivals. He talks  about how their identities as 'seapowers' informed their actions and enabled them to achieve success disproportionate to their size.

*  United States and China are modern naval powers, rather than seapowers... a most interesting way to look at these countries today.