Publisher Description
“Variably genial, cautionary, lyrical, admonitory, terrifying, horrifying and inspiring…A lifetime of thought, travel, reading, imagination and memory inform this affecting account.” —Kirkus Reviews (starred review)
Blending history and anecdote, geography and reminiscence, science and exposition, New York Times bestselling author Simon Winchester tells the breathtaking saga of the Atlantic Ocean. A gifted storyteller and consummate historian, Winchester sets the great blue sea’s epic narrative against the backdrop of mankind’s intellectual evolution, telling not only the story of an ocean, but the story of civilization. Fans of Winchester’s Krakatoa, The Man Who Loved China, and The Professor and the Madman will love this masterful, penetrating, and resonant tale of humanity finding its way across the ocean of history.
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“I so admire the author’s love of story and detail, but with this book didn’t think his editor did a very good job of removing repetitions and unnecessary diversions. Using the seven stages of man as a structure may have made sense at the onset, but became a little contrived toward the end. Sometimes it worked, sometimes it didn’t. That said, the book is a goldmine of information about the Atlantic and the life that teems within it and around it, and you can’t help but leave it with a head full of facts and events and interesting stories that you know will serve you down the road or on a breezy day as you stand on the edge of a dune gazing down onto breakers rolling in from the Atlantic and consider your place in the scheme of things.”
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Martha (4 out of 5 stars)