A book around the Irish Sea : history without nations / David Brett.

Includes bibliographical references and index.

The subject of this book is that stretch of water generally called the Irish Sea, and its shores, considered as a place of exchange and meeting, as a zone of interaction, as a fact of geography and history that precedes mere nations. We are accustomed to the idea of a Mediterranean culture, so why not to a culture and history of our own inland sea? Perhaps because the idea of nationality gets in the way. This book has no single historical focus, but a central question: what is it to live and die along these shores?