Only in the late fifteenth century did Europe come to view the North Atlantic as the route to the rest of the world rather than as the western edge of civilisation. Over the following century, Spain, Portugal, France, England and the Dutch provinces all established themselves as naval powers with overseas empires, with Britain emerging as the pre-eminent global naval power by the middle of the eighteenth century. British domination of the North Atlantic was overwhelming, and by the nineteenth century the trade and economic interests of all Western European powers and of the United States depended on British largesse. This British primacy lasted until the two world wars of the twentieth century and the emergence of the United States as the leading world power. After 1945, the North Atlantic retained its importance as the ocean that connected North America and Europe - a reality recognised in the name of the alliance that links them: the North Atlantic Treaty Organization.
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