Exploiting the Sea offers new perspectives on Britain's vital but changing relationship with the sea since the late nineteenth century. It assesses the significance to the British economy of sea-reliant industries such as shipping, shipbuilding, fishing, coastal trading and seaside tourism. It also seeks to explain why the clear pre-eminence that Britain established in the maritime world during the Victorian era has not been sustained in the twentieth century. Exploiting the Sea is a new volume in the highly successful series Exeter Maritime Studies, and brings together contributions from experts writing in their own specialist fields to give a wide-ranging but structured analytical approach to a misunderstood subject.