Book excerpt: Section 1. Navies and national identities -- Groom of the sea: Venetian sovereignty between power and myth / Luciano Pezzolo -- National flags as essential elements of Dutch naval ideology, 1570-1800 / Gijs Rommelse -- Towards a scientific navy: institutional identity and Spain's Eighteenth-Century Navy / Catherine Scheybeler -- The French Navy from Louis XV to Napoleon I: what role and by what means? / Patrick Villiers -- Section 2. Monarchical Projects -- Fleets and states in a composite Catholic monarchy: Spain c. 1500-1700 / Christopher Storrs -- "Great Neptunes of the main": myths, mangled histories, and "maritime monarchy" in the Stuart Navy, 1603-1714 / J.D. Davies -- Colbert and La Royale: dynastic ambitions and imperial ideals in France / Alan James.