Blending history and anecdote, geography and reminiscence,
science and exposition, the New York Times bestselling
author of Krakatoa tells the breathtaking saga of the
magnificent Atlantic Ocean, setting it against the backdrop
of mankind's intellectual evolution.
Until a thousand years ago, no humans ventured into the
Atlantic or imagined traversing its vast infinity. But once
the first daring mariners successfully navigated to far
shores—whether it was the Vikings, the Irish, the Chinese,
Christopher Columbus in the north, or the Portuguese and the
Spanish in the south—the Atlantic evolved in the world's
growing consciousness of itself as an enclosed body of water
bounded by the Americas to the West, and by Europe and
Africa to the East. Atlantic is a biography of this immense
space, of a sea which has defined and determined so much
about the lives of the millions who live beside or near its
tens of thousands of miles of coast.
The Atlantic has been central to the ambitions of explorers,
scientists and warriors, and it continues to affect our
character, attitudes, and dreams. Poets to potentates, seers
to sailors, fishermen to foresters—all have a relationship
with this great body of blue-green sea and regard her as
friend or foe, adversary or ally, depending on circumstance
or fortune. Simon Winchester chronicles that relationship,
making the Atlantic come vividly alive. Spanning from the
earth's geological origins to the age of exploration, World
War II battles to modern pollution, his narrative is epic
and awe-inspiring.
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