Seapower To Superpower: The Story of Global Supremacy

This hour covers the defeat of the Spanish Armada and the wars between the Dutch and the English for control of world trade ultimately resolved by an alliance that placed Prince William of Orange on the throne of England along with his English wife, Mary. The alliance guaranteed the Dutch merchant marine access to the world's oceans but left the Royal Navy supreme.

This episode is concerned primarily with the battles between France, the greatest land power, and Britain, the greatest seapower, for world dominance. Program two includes the Battle for Quebec and the American Revolution and traces the decisive role played by naval power in both conflicts.

Between 1815 and 1865, Great Britain adds territory around the world equal to one hundred Englands. By the end of the 19th century, technological innovation increases dramatically. Britain responds with a victory at Jutland in World War I but is exhausted financially after the struggle. Germany is defeated but America and Japan emerge from the conflict in stronger positions.

This episode marks the transfer of power midway through WWII from the Royal Navy to the US Navy and the growth of two unique 20th century weapons of war, the submarine and the aircraft carrier. But before that happens, the Japanese make a serious challenge to Britain and America's domination of the great commons of the sea.

Naval strategists had concluded, with the arrival of cheap land transportation, that the advantage of seapower would be transferred to a land-based empire. By 1946, that challenger, the USSR, had arrived, and with it, atomic power, missiles and satellites. Space, the Great Commons explores the war over space between the United States and the Soviet Union and America's final triumph.