Atlantic
"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 Timesbestselling 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 Madmanwill love this masterful, penetrating, and resonant tale of humanity finding its way across the ocean of history.
Stats for nerds
2recommend
4mentions
3people
2021–2023years
50% recommend50% neutral
Mentions per year
What Hacker News says
- Simon Winchester has written several great books that I've thoroughly enjoyed over the years. He's one of my favorite non-fiction authors.
A pair of books called The Atlantic and The Pacific; detailing the history of the ocean, people in it and around it. The Perfectionists, about precision engineering
- For a good run-down of the various folks that may (or may not) have crossed the Atlantic, see Simon Winchester's book Atlantic (ISBN13: 9780061702587):
- > References in Greek texts from the 4th century BC are IMO suggestive of early voyages to the coast of West Africa, the nearest navigable mangrove forests (unless shipworm managed to somehow get carried across the Sinai isthmus)
Simon Winchester discusses how Cape Bojador [1] was impassible until 1443 (in his book Atlantic [2]) so it is unlikely that early voyages reached any further south along the coast of West Africa. During Roman times there were indeed canals to the Red Sea [3] and a robust international trade system as outlined in the Periplus of the Erythraean Sea [4].
[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cape_Bojador
[2] http://www.simonwinchester.com/atlantic
[3] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Canal_of_the_Pharaohs
[4] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Periplus_of_the_Erythraean_Sea
- > Simon Winchester discusses how Cape Bojador [1] was impassible until 1443 (in his book Atlantic [2])
He also wrote Pacific. :)
