Ship canals

Summary

ABSTRACT.Ship canals bring the advantages of the sea inland and overland, giving physical expression to the high economic and political value of sea transport. The Suez and Panama Canals linked empires as well as shortening trade routes and favouring steam over sail. They have often taken on a powerful symbolic value, embodying the power of empire and even of mankind over nature.

RÉSUMÉ.Les canaux de navigation offrent les avantages de la mer au transport intérieur terrestre. Ils sont la manifestation physique de l'importance économique et politique du transport maritime. Le canal de Suez et le canal de Panama permirent de relier des empires tout en raccourcissant les itinéraires commerciaux et favorisèrent l'utilisation de la vapeur sur la voile. Ils ont souvent pris une puissante valeur symbolique en incarnant le pouvoir d'un empire voire même du genre humain sur la nature.

Ship canals distort space and time. Some of them create routes across landmasses that would otherwise have to be circumnavigated, dramatically shortening the maritime distance between two points. Others turn landlocked towns into seaports, bringing ocean-going vessels far inland and challenging the interests of older ports. Ship canals are therefore a disruptive force in their own right, and they have historically served as enablers of others, not least the steamship. Canals offer important lessons in how states, navies, entrepreneurs, port authorities and engineers have visualised and manipulated the relationship between land and sea, often on a monumental scale, and also in how those institutions and individuals have adapted to the consequences of such actions. Most major ship canals were a product of a particular time, and need to be interpreted as part of European and American economic and imperial expansion from the second half of the 19^th century. Their role changed, but was still important, in the 20^th century. Even with the development of aviation, the sea remained fundamental to the security and prosperity of states. Warships did not lose their strategic importance in projecting state influence overseas, while cargo shipping has always been the cheapest means of carrying most goods. Today, the shipping industry defines classes of vessels according to whether they can navigate the world's major canals, and the demands of ever-larger ships drive periodic reassessments of the operation and capacity of the canals themselves.