This book presents the integrated history of both seas and its neigh ours for the first time, from the Antique until present times. The author carves out the political, cultural and economic connecting and separating lines within the North European region between the British Isles in the West, Russia in the East, Iceland in the North, and Poland and Germany in the South. Here, he illustrates colourfully and competently, how the ideal notions, but also the actual ideas of the regional and relationship history, which has lasted over centuries, positively affected solidarity, but how it also led to conflicts.