Stuart Bligh was formerly Head of Research at the National Maritime Museum and County Archivist for Kent. Sheila Sweetinburgh is a Principal Research Fellow in the Centre for Kent History and Heritage at Canterbury Christ Church University and editor of Early Medieval Kent, 800-1220 (Boydell, 2016) and Later Medieval Kent, 1220-1540 (Boydell, 2018). Stuart Bligh was formerly Head of Research at the National Maritime Museum and County Archivist for Kent. ADRIAN JOBSON is an Honorary Research Fellow at the University of East Anglia. Andrew Lambert is Professor of War Studies at King's College, London and one of Britain's foremost maritime and naval historians. Sheila Sweetinburgh is a Principal Research Fellow in the Centre for Kent History and Heritage at Canterbury Christ Church University and editor of Early Medieval Kent, 800-1220 (Boydell, 2016) and Later Medieval Kent, 1220-1540 (Boydell, 2018). Elizabeth Edwards is an Honorary Senior Research Fellow at the University of Kent and was from 1994-2007 Director of the Kentish Regional and Local History degree programme.

• List of illustrationsNotes on contributorsAcknowledgementsAbbreviations1) Introduction - Stuart Bligh, Elizabeth Edwards and Sheila SweetinburghPart 1 Topography2) Kent's Changing Coastal Landscape: A View across Space and Time (or "where the land meets the sea"!) - Chris YoungPart II Defence3) Defending the Kent coast - Roman to Anglo-Saxon - Keith Parfitt4) The Maritime Defences of Kent from the Loss of Normandy to the Hundred Years' War - Adrian Jobson5) To Defend the Coast - Chris Ware6) Kent's Role in the National Defence Strategy, 1815 to 1865: Dockyards and Harbours in the Age of Steam - Andrew LambertPart III Trade and Industry7) Trade and Industry during the Roman Period - Elizabeth Blanning8) Far-Fetched Treasures: The Maritime Networks of the Kingdom of Kent - Andrew Richardson9) Maritime Trade and Industry in Medieval Kent - Maryanne Kowaleski10) The Early Modern Period 1500-1700: Trade and Industry - Jane Andrewes11) Maritime Kent: Trade and Industry since 1700 - David KillingrayPart III Coastal Communities12) Urban Privilege? The Advantages and Enjoyment of Cinque Ports Status in the Middle Ages - Gillian Draper13) Empire, Race, and Diversifying Kent's History, c.1500-1840 - Ben Marsh and David Killingray14) Maritime Communities in Seventeenth- and Eighteenth-Century Kent - Sandra Dunster15) A Rich Diversity: Modern Kent Coastal Communities - Elizabeth EdwardsPart IV Case Studies16) The Political and Strategic Importance of the Port of Sandwich in the Later Middle Ages c.1340-1500 - Susan Rose17) "Ready for to go to the Sea": maintaining Fishing Families in Late Medieval Hythe - Sheila Sweetinburgh18Saints and Weirs: Late Medieval and Early Modern Communities within a Small Island Landscape in North Kent - Melanie Caiazza19) Early Modern Thanet: An Open Society - Gill Wyatt20) "Dost Thou Know Dover?": Locating Dover in the Early Modern Literary Imagination c.1500-1660 - Claire Bartram21) "fat persons bathing whose appearance was most disgusting": Entertaining Thanet in the Age of Steam - Carolyn W. de la L. Oulton22) Rhododendrons and Raids: Dover Naval Women's Daily Life and Emotions in 1918 - Jo Stanley23) Afterword - Margarette LincolnBibliographyIndex

Maritime Kent is an academic work, [..] but many will find it contains interesting material. The success of some places and the misfortunes of others, past and current, provoke sober consideration.