Maritime history examines the human relationship with the sea and is a local and global history of communication and movement. It is of course about what people did on the sea (seafarers, ships, navigation, maritime trade, war, piracy); around the sea (maritime communities, islands, port cities, shipping, fishing and tourism); in the sea (fishing, marine resources, environment); because of the sea (maritime transport systems and business networks, maritime empires, international and national maritime organisations and policy); and about the sea (maritime culture and heritage, ideology, myths and poems of a sea, its impact on art). Through these five categories one can follow continuity and change and can see how humanity interacts with the sea and influences the course of history on land.