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The Free Sea offers a unique, single-volume analysis of incidents in American history that affected U.S. freedom of navigation at sea. The book spans more than 200 years, beginning in the Colonial era with the Quasi-War with France in 1798 and extending to contemporary Freedom of Navigation operations in the South China Sea. Through wars and numerous crises with North Korea, North Vietnam, Cambodia, Iran, Russia and China, freedom of navigation has been a persistent challenge for the United States, a nation reliant on open seas for economic prosperity, military security and global order. This volume focuses on the struggle to retain freedom of the seas. Challenges to U.S. warships and maritime commerce have pushed, and continue to challenge, the United States to vindicate its rights through diplomatic, legal, and military means, underscoring the need for the strategic resolve in the global maritime commons.

In 1858, Mary Millburn successfully made her escape from Norfolk, Virginia, to Philadelphia aboard an express steamship. Millburn's maritime route to freedom was far from uncommon. By the mid-nineteenth century an increasing number of enslaved people had fled northward along the Atlantic seaboard. While scholarship on the Underground Railroad has focused almost exclusively on overland escape routes from the antebellum South, this groundbreaking volume expands our understanding of how freedom was achieved by sea and what the journey looked like for many African Americans. With innovative scholarship and thorough research, Sailing to Freedom highlights little-known stories and describes the less-understood maritime side of the Underground Railroad, including the impact of African Americans' paid and unpaid waterfront labor. These ten essays reconsider and contextualize how escapes were managed along the East Coast, moving from the Carolinas, Virginia, and Maryland to safe harbor in northern cities such as Philadelphia, New York, New Bedford, and Boston. In addition to the volume editor, contributors include David S. Cecelski, Elysa Engelman, Kathryn Grover, Megan Jeffreys, Cheryl Janifer LaRoche, Mirelle Luecke, Cassandra Newby-Alexander, Michael D. Thompson, and Len Travers.

Transcribed by William E. Butler into English for the first time, from Du Ponceau's hand, a translation of Gérard de Rayneval's On the Freedom of the Sea. A previously overlooked and unpublished contemporary translation by Peter S. Du Ponceau of the classic treatise by Joseph-Mathias Gérard de Rayneval, De la liberté des mers (Paris, 1811), edited with an extensive introduction by William E. Butler. Successor two centuries later to Grotius' classic writings on the freedom of the seas, Gérard de Rayneval's work affirmed the principles of natural and positive law applicable to naval warfare, privateers, the law of prize, the deep seabed and high seas, neutrality, and international straits from a French perspective deeply sympathetic to American views of the time. Gérard de Rayneval cherished the hope that Napoleon might be inspired by the work to draft a code of maritime law. This treatise informed negotiations that led to the 1856 Declaration of Paris and was widely cited by continental jurists during the 19th century. "Professor William Butler's careful scholarship and clear presentation bring to life an important translation of Gérard de Rayneval's work on the law of the sea, a topic of continuing interest to scholars and mariners alike in the 21st century. Professor Butler's detailed introduction and editing of Du Ponceau's translation offer essential background for familiar maritime concepts and adds richness to the body of work explaining the legal regimes surrounding the use of the world's seas." --James W. Houck Vice Admiral, Judge Advocate General's Corps, U.S. Navy (Ret.), Interim Dean and Distinguished Scholar in Residence, Penn State, The Dickinson School of Law WILLIAM E. BUTLER is the John Edward Fowler Distinguished Professor of Law, Dickinson School of Law, Pennsylvania State University, Emeritus Professor of Comparative Law, University of London, Foreign Member, National Academy of Sciences of Ukraine and National Academy of Legal Sciences of Ukraine. JOSEPH-MATHIAS GÉRARD DE RAYNEVAL (1736-1812) was First Deputy Minister of Foreign Affairs and an international lawyer. He was a significant mediator in Anglo-French relations who composed an important memorandum of French strategy for secret assistance to the Americans entitled "Reflections on the Situation in America" (1776). He was a key negotiator in the commercial Eden Treaty (1786), which was signed by him on behalf of France. In 1804 he was awarded the Cross of the Legion of Honor for his contributions to the literature of international law. PETER STEPHEN DU PONCEAU (1760-1844) was a Franco-American jurist who came to America at the age of 17 and lived in Philadelphia, where he practiced international law until his death. He was president of the American Philosophical Society. In 1810 he published a translation of Bynkershoek's A Treatise on the Law of War.

This work presents an in-depth analysis of the most complex of the many ocean boundary delimitation problems confronting neighboring states in the Pacific region. In each case the various factors influencing the parties to the dispute are examined in detail & alternative diplomatic options are compared. Special emphasis is given to the problems of Southeast Asia, East Asia, & the Northeast Pacific, but regional developments in the Southwest Pacific & the Central & Southeast Pacific are also discussed. The authors, who are prominent specialists in the field of ocean policy studies place their factor-and-option analysis of these difficult disputes within a multidisciplinary, 'functionalist' framework, & offer some original proposals for innovative ocean diplomacy that now seem realistic in light of recent improvements in the international political arena.

This book critically analyzes US political-military strategy by arguing that freedom of the seas discourse is fundamentally unfit for an era of maritime great power competition. The work conducts a genealogical intellectual history of freedom of the seas discourse in US foreign policy to show how the concept has evolved over time to facilitate American control over the global ocean space. It concludes that the contemporary discourse works to establish the high seas as an arena free from claims of sovereignty so that the United States, as the presumed unrivaled naval power, can intervene globally on behalf of its national interests. However, since sea control strategies depend on a preponderance of material force, as the United States wanes in relative material capability it becomes less able to support political-military strategies predicated on the assumption of global naval dominance. The book provides a timely commentary on the current geopolitical competition between the United States and China, and critiques the US approach toward China in the maritime domain in order to highlight potential avenues of foreign policy action that may enable the two countries to mitigate the risk of conflict. This book will be of much interest to students of naval history, maritime security, US foreign policy, and international relations.

The official monthly record of United States foreign policy.