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Atlantic: Great Sea Battles, Heroic Discoveries, Titanic Storms & a Vast Ocean of a Million Stories
In a narrative tour de force, Simon Winchester dramatises the life of the Atlantic Ocean, from its birth in the farther recesses of geological time to its eventual extinction millions of years in the future. At the core of the book is the story of mankind's complex relationship with this immense sea, which stretches for 9,000 miles from pole to pole. The Atlantic has profoundly influenced the lives of those who have lived along its shores, from hardscrabble pioneers in windswept locations such as the Aran Islands and Newfoundland, to the inhabitants of the great port cities of Lisbon, Rio, London and New York. ATLANTIC brings to life key episodes in this compelling human drama - the age of exploration and the subsequent colonisation of the Americas; the flourishing of transatlantic commerce and the rise and fall of the slave trade; extraordinary tales of sea-borne emigration during the nineteenth century; and the great naval battles that have left an indelible imprint on Atlantic history. Travelling by small sailing craft, container ship and general cargo vessel, Simon Winchester will journey around the edges and across the vast expanse of the ocean to report from the places that encapsulate its most fascinating stories. It is an enthralling mixture of history, science and reportage from a master of narrative non-fiction, and the definitive account of this magnificent body of water.
495 pages, Hardcover
First published November 2, 2010
702 people are currently reading
5780 people want to read
About the author
Simon Winchester
94 books2,347 followersSimon Winchester, OBE, is a British writer, journalist and broadcaster who resides in the United States. Through his career at The Guardian, Winchester covered numerous significant events including Bloody Sunday and the Watergate Scandal. As an author, Simon Winchester has written or contributed to over a dozen nonfiction books and authored one novel, and his articles appear in several travel publications including Condé Nast Traveler, Smithsonian Magazine, and National Geographic.
In 1969, Winchester joined The Guardian, first as regional correspondent based in Newcastle upon Tyne, but was later assigned to be the Northern Ireland Correspondent. Winchester's time in Northern Ireland placed him around several events of The Troubles, including the events of Bloody Sunday and the Belfast Hour of Terror.
After leaving Northern Ireland in 1972, Winchester was briefly assigned to Calcutta before becoming The Guardian's American correspondent in Washington, D.C., where Winchester covered news ranging from the end of Richard Nixon's administration to the start of Jimmy Carter's presidency. In 1982, while working as the Chief Foreign Feature Writer for The Sunday Times, Winchester was on location for the invasion of the Falklands Islands by Argentine forces. Suspected of being a spy, Winchester was held as a prisoner in Tierra del Fuego for three months.
Winchester's first book, In Holy Terror, was published by Faber and Faber in 1975. The book drew heavily on his first-hand experiences during the turmoils in Ulster. In 1976, Winchester published his second book, American Heartbeat, which dealt with his personal travels through the American heartland. Winchester's third book, Prison Diary, was a recounting of his imprisonment at Tierra del Fuego during the Falklands War and, as noted by Dr Jules Smith, is responsible for his rise to prominence in the United Kingdom. Throughout the 1980s and most of the 1990s, Winchester produced several travel books, most of which dealt with Asian and Pacific locations including Korea, Hong Kong, and the Yangtze River.
Winchester's first truly successful book was The Professor and the Madman (1998), published by Penguin UK as The Surgeon of Crowthorne. Telling the story of the creation of the Oxford English Dictionary, the book was a New York Times Best Seller, and Mel Gibson optioned the rights to a film version, likely to be directed by John Boorman.
Though Winchester still writes travel books, he has repeated the narrative non-fiction form he used in The Professor and the Madman several times, many of which ended in books placed on best sellers lists. His 2001 book, The Map that Changed the World, focused on geologist William Smith and was Whichester's second New York Times best seller. The year 2003 saw Winchester release another book on the creation of the Oxford English Dictionary, The Meaning of Everything, as well as the best-selling Krakatoa: The Day the World Exploded. Winchester followed Krakatoa's volcano with San Francisco's 1906 earthquake in A Crack in the Edge of the World. The Man Who Loved China (2008) retells the life of eccentric Cambridge scholar Joseph Needham, who helped to expose China to the western world. Winchester's latest book, The Alice Behind Wonderland, was released March 11, 2011.
- source Wikipedia
In 1969, Winchester joined The Guardian, first as regional correspondent based in Newcastle upon Tyne, but was later assigned to be the Northern Ireland Correspondent. Winchester's time in Northern Ireland placed him around several events of The Troubles, including the events of Bloody Sunday and the Belfast Hour of Terror.
After leaving Northern Ireland in 1972, Winchester was briefly assigned to Calcutta before becoming The Guardian's American correspondent in Washington, D.C., where Winchester covered news ranging from the end of Richard Nixon's administration to the start of Jimmy Carter's presidency. In 1982, while working as the Chief Foreign Feature Writer for The Sunday Times, Winchester was on location for the invasion of the Falklands Islands by Argentine forces. Suspected of being a spy, Winchester was held as a prisoner in Tierra del Fuego for three months.
Winchester's first book, In Holy Terror, was published by Faber and Faber in 1975. The book drew heavily on his first-hand experiences during the turmoils in Ulster. In 1976, Winchester published his second book, American Heartbeat, which dealt with his personal travels through the American heartland. Winchester's third book, Prison Diary, was a recounting of his imprisonment at Tierra del Fuego during the Falklands War and, as noted by Dr Jules Smith, is responsible for his rise to prominence in the United Kingdom. Throughout the 1980s and most of the 1990s, Winchester produced several travel books, most of which dealt with Asian and Pacific locations including Korea, Hong Kong, and the Yangtze River.
Winchester's first truly successful book was The Professor and the Madman (1998), published by Penguin UK as The Surgeon of Crowthorne. Telling the story of the creation of the Oxford English Dictionary, the book was a New York Times Best Seller, and Mel Gibson optioned the rights to a film version, likely to be directed by John Boorman.
Though Winchester still writes travel books, he has repeated the narrative non-fiction form he used in The Professor and the Madman several times, many of which ended in books placed on best sellers lists. His 2001 book, The Map that Changed the World, focused on geologist William Smith and was Whichester's second New York Times best seller. The year 2003 saw Winchester release another book on the creation of the Oxford English Dictionary, The Meaning of Everything, as well as the best-selling Krakatoa: The Day the World Exploded. Winchester followed Krakatoa's volcano with San Francisco's 1906 earthquake in A Crack in the Edge of the World. The Man Who Loved China (2008) retells the life of eccentric Cambridge scholar Joseph Needham, who helped to expose China to the western world. Winchester's latest book, The Alice Behind Wonderland, was released March 11, 2011.
- source Wikipedia
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Displaying 1 - 30 of 749 reviews
May 5, 2026
Having read Simon Winchester's 'Pacific' I had expected this book to follow a similar format, but it doesn't. Pacific was a series on unconnected stories from locations in the Pacific Ocean. This book does contain various stories from locations within the Atlantic, but it is far more heavily invested in an overall narrative (or more accurately several narratives).
For a framework Winchester has divided the book into sections paralleling the 7 stages of man, as listed in Shakespeare's As You Like It which seems somewhat arbitrary, but does sort of work as the life of an ocean - starting with ancient history and discovery and ended with environmental change and what mankind is doing to the ocean.
Winchester uses plenty of sources in history and science, but also manages to include in his narrative plenty of travels - whether that this the explorers of old or drawing from his own travels from the 1960s until now. He also writes of literary figures and their inspiration from and writing about the Atlantic, stories of overfishing and ocean management, pollution and climate change. Naval battles, shipwrecks, plate tectonics and vulcanology,
I certainly didn't read this book quickly. I found a couple of sections at a time was enough before I needed something else - reading 3 books between starting and finishing Winchester's offering. It isn't that it wasn't interesting and appealing, or even overly long at under 500 pages, it was just that it was a slow read. Even the action sections were slow, but then, he had a long history to cover.
There are a couple of decent maps, lots of small photographs and drawings which were ok, but don't make up for the lack of colour plates.
4 stars
For a framework Winchester has divided the book into sections paralleling the 7 stages of man, as listed in Shakespeare's As You Like It which seems somewhat arbitrary, but does sort of work as the life of an ocean - starting with ancient history and discovery and ended with environmental change and what mankind is doing to the ocean.
Winchester uses plenty of sources in history and science, but also manages to include in his narrative plenty of travels - whether that this the explorers of old or drawing from his own travels from the 1960s until now. He also writes of literary figures and their inspiration from and writing about the Atlantic, stories of overfishing and ocean management, pollution and climate change. Naval battles, shipwrecks, plate tectonics and vulcanology,
I certainly didn't read this book quickly. I found a couple of sections at a time was enough before I needed something else - reading 3 books between starting and finishing Winchester's offering. It isn't that it wasn't interesting and appealing, or even overly long at under 500 pages, it was just that it was a slow read. Even the action sections were slow, but then, he had a long history to cover.
There are a couple of decent maps, lots of small photographs and drawings which were ok, but don't make up for the lack of colour plates.
4 stars
February 4, 2020
Un gran bel saggio, direi quasi una biografia dell’Oceano Atlantico, che ci dà informazioni scientifiche e ci parla del suo rapporto con gli uomini attraverso una miriade di episodi: chi ne aveva terrore, chi ci navigò su minuscole imbarcazioni, chi lo attraversò senza saperlo e chi lo attraversò pensando di arrivare altrove; chi scoprì le sue dimensioni, i venti, le correnti, le profondità; i poeti e i narratori di mostri marini che lo cantarono, i pittori che lo dipinsero, chi ha costruito porti e città sulle sue rive. E ancora: le guerre, i trasporti, le comunicazioni, le normative, i voli che ne sorvolano le acque; l’inquinamento marino che mette in pericolo svariate specie ittiche, le petroliere che si spezzano, le piattaforme che esplodono, le acque che si alzano, i cambiamenti climatici… tantissime sono le storie che, senza annoiare mai, Simon Winchester usa per raccontare il rapporto tra l’uomo e l’Oceano Atlantico.
Nel 1942 la nave inglese “Dunedin Star” naufragò lungo le coste al largo della Namibia. Una quarantina di persone riuscirono a raggiungere la spiaggia. In loro soccorso arrivarono quattro navi; una di queste si arenò e due membri dell’equipaggio, il namibiano Matthias Koraseb e lo scozzese Angus MacIntyre, cercarono di raggiungere la costa a nuoto, ma non ci riuscirono, morirono entrambi: il namibiano è sepolto sulla costa, lo scozzese non è stato ritrovato. Dopo svariati tentativi di portare in salvo i naufraghi, tutti falliti, l’aiuto finalmente arrivò da terra, ma ci vollero ben 26 giorni.
Allo scozzese Angus Campbell MacIntyre è dedicato il libro.
Nel 1942 la nave inglese “Dunedin Star” naufragò lungo le coste al largo della Namibia. Una quarantina di persone riuscirono a raggiungere la spiaggia. In loro soccorso arrivarono quattro navi; una di queste si arenò e due membri dell’equipaggio, il namibiano Matthias Koraseb e lo scozzese Angus MacIntyre, cercarono di raggiungere la costa a nuoto, ma non ci riuscirono, morirono entrambi: il namibiano è sepolto sulla costa, lo scozzese non è stato ritrovato. Dopo svariati tentativi di portare in salvo i naufraghi, tutti falliti, l’aiuto finalmente arrivò da terra, ma ci vollero ben 26 giorni.
Allo scozzese Angus Campbell MacIntyre è dedicato il libro.
December 4, 2013
Using as his central pillar a Shakespearean monologue from As You Like It that lists the seven stages of a man’s life, Simon Winchester offers us the life of an ocean.
He covers a very wide swath in his examination of that very un-pacific Atlantic. Beginning with big-picture geology, he looks at the infant Atlantic and gives a preview of what the world will look like when the Atlantic is no more. There is plenty here about tectonics, volcanism and the mighty forces of a planet that is constantly changing. But his primary focus in on the relationship of people to the Atlantic.
He looks at a host of firsts across many disciplines, the first to cross the ocean, the first paintings centered on the ocean, the first poems, stories, etc. He tells how Islamic control of both ends of the Mediterranean contributed to European expansion across the less contested Atlantic, round about 1492. Much attention is paid to the Atlantic as an arena for battle, from the earliest seagoing battles to contemporary submarine warfare, with a surprising entry here on the importance of chestnuts to munitions manufacture, and of how technical expertise re weapons production influenced the creation of a state decades later. He looks at how trade became a basis for 11th and 12century globalization, traces the development of commercial oceanic trade, and brings it all up to date with a look at current Atlantic traffic, both asea and aloft. He offers a look at some of the ecological implications of that commerce, and notes new technologies that hopefully will mitigate, somewhat, the harm that commerce causes. He also looks at the impact of overfishing.
Atlantic is not a fast read. I suppose that is because of the huge quantity of facts presented. But it is well worth the time.
Some might argue that Winchester has over-reached, that such a globe-girdling tale cannot truly be distilled into a meager 459 pages. (the page count in my pre-release copy may not match the final number) Perhaps the subject is too large for a single volume. But do not be dissuaded by this. Winchester has put together a vast array of fascinating material, diving deep to find bits information that will surprise and please. Winchester’s Atlantic covers many aspects of the great ocean, which seems fitting when one considers the reach of the ocean itself. I had the pleasure recently of being at a lake in Montana that spreads its waters in three directions, one of which is towards the Atlantic. How remarkable the reach of this vast body of water. What a titanic (couldn’t resist) achievement that Winchester has offered us all an opportunity to recognize just how important this body of water is to humanity, to our survival, to our history, to our politics, to our culture, to our art, to our very identity and to our future. The Atlantic Ocean only has another 170 million years before it succumbs to the demands of geology and perishes. So there is not a minute to spare. Swim out to your store and pick up a copy while there is still time.
=============================EXTRA STUFF
11/25/13 – My GR pal, Cathy D sent along this link to a fascinating article that concerns the Big A. Seems a large object dropped in on us at what is now the Chesapeake Bay and scientists recently found an explanation for some heretofore inexplicable inland water that was unusually salty.
He covers a very wide swath in his examination of that very un-pacific Atlantic. Beginning with big-picture geology, he looks at the infant Atlantic and gives a preview of what the world will look like when the Atlantic is no more. There is plenty here about tectonics, volcanism and the mighty forces of a planet that is constantly changing. But his primary focus in on the relationship of people to the Atlantic.
He looks at a host of firsts across many disciplines, the first to cross the ocean, the first paintings centered on the ocean, the first poems, stories, etc. He tells how Islamic control of both ends of the Mediterranean contributed to European expansion across the less contested Atlantic, round about 1492. Much attention is paid to the Atlantic as an arena for battle, from the earliest seagoing battles to contemporary submarine warfare, with a surprising entry here on the importance of chestnuts to munitions manufacture, and of how technical expertise re weapons production influenced the creation of a state decades later. He looks at how trade became a basis for 11th and 12century globalization, traces the development of commercial oceanic trade, and brings it all up to date with a look at current Atlantic traffic, both asea and aloft. He offers a look at some of the ecological implications of that commerce, and notes new technologies that hopefully will mitigate, somewhat, the harm that commerce causes. He also looks at the impact of overfishing.
Atlantic is not a fast read. I suppose that is because of the huge quantity of facts presented. But it is well worth the time.
Some might argue that Winchester has over-reached, that such a globe-girdling tale cannot truly be distilled into a meager 459 pages. (the page count in my pre-release copy may not match the final number) Perhaps the subject is too large for a single volume. But do not be dissuaded by this. Winchester has put together a vast array of fascinating material, diving deep to find bits information that will surprise and please. Winchester’s Atlantic covers many aspects of the great ocean, which seems fitting when one considers the reach of the ocean itself. I had the pleasure recently of being at a lake in Montana that spreads its waters in three directions, one of which is towards the Atlantic. How remarkable the reach of this vast body of water. What a titanic (couldn’t resist) achievement that Winchester has offered us all an opportunity to recognize just how important this body of water is to humanity, to our survival, to our history, to our politics, to our culture, to our art, to our very identity and to our future. The Atlantic Ocean only has another 170 million years before it succumbs to the demands of geology and perishes. So there is not a minute to spare. Swim out to your store and pick up a copy while there is still time.
=============================EXTRA STUFF
11/25/13 – My GR pal, Cathy D sent along this link to a fascinating article that concerns the Big A. Seems a large object dropped in on us at what is now the Chesapeake Bay and scientists recently found an explanation for some heretofore inexplicable inland water that was unusually salty.
January 31, 2016
This “biography” of the Atlantic strives with impossible ambition to paint a picture of the role of the Atlantic Ocean over all of human history using Shakespeare’s scheme of the Seven Ages of Man. A bit of a poetic stretch but ultimately a practical way of framing all the scientific and cultural perspectives he works to include. This is no dry linear account, but a meandering and often lyrical narrative with lots of idiosyncratic digressions energized from personal experiences from Winchester’s own diverse travels and adventures. I enjoyed the experience of him reading this in audiobook format, which was rendered in a confident and energetic diction similar to the BBC standard of David Attenborough.
After a brief tour of 130 million years of geological and biological evolution, the author brings humans on the Atlantic stage with the peoples of Mediterranean civilizations mythologizing the apparently endless sea and then lowing learning to venture beyond the Pillars of Hercules. First the Phoenicians, then the Vikings, and later the Western Europeans and their conquering and colonizing forces. The Vikings and Danes first landed and lived in America, but this knowledge was not widely disseminated. It took a decade of crossings after Columbus for the concept to sink in that the Atlantic was a finite but distinct ocean and the New World a separate continent from Asia.
As the forbidding barrier of the Atlantic was transformed into a doorway, we get the successive ages of man through exploration then competition in exploitation, ending with the prospect of exhausting its resources and destructive impacts on its ecology. Though much of this history may be known to many prospective readers, you may be charmed like me by the way he sweeps through all the transitions with interludes of fascinating detail and highlights from personal experiences. The progressive development of transportation capacity from sail to steam to air travel is a big sweep of his story. Interludes on the first scheduled mail, passenger, and shipping services were of special interest due to being unknown to me. The evolution of naval warfare, history of airflight, and changing conceptions of the sea through literature and art were too compressed to add much to what I knew (other readers may appreciate the synthesis). The history of charting of the ocean bottom and challenges of laying the first transatlantic telegraph cables was new and interesting to me.
Due to my having lived on the Atlantic shore of New England for 35 years, all his descriptions of rocky coasts, storms and fog, and the dangerous chill waters he presents from various sites in the North Atlantic were not so compelling to me. Perhaps not for others. I actually worked out of small boats in eastern Maine for a couple of years with a failing Nori seaweed acquaculture operation, which killed much of any sense of romance about the Atlantic. Winchester’s visits to various ports and island sites of more southern, warmer Atlantic regions helped revive such feelings and unfulfilled desires for travel and adventure such as one gets from travel memoirs. Digressions in Tierra del Fuego, Capetown, the Falklands, St. Helena, and Tristan da Cunha were pleasant forays for me.
The boom and bust in the evolution of whaling and fishing was well done in such a compressed format, especially the story of the cod fishery of the Grand Banks (though not new for me). Unfortunately, he has only one sentence on aquaculture, which was a big deal from the 90’s where I live. That it takes 10 pounds of herring to raise one pound of salmon is a fact that disillusioned me after initial enthusiasm. In the end phases of the book pollution and global warming represent a big theme for his Seven Ages scheme, but he hardly goes beyond the most basic science. For example, he doesn’t even touch on the carbon cycle or the worldwide decline of coral (in recent years linked to acidification of ocean water). He does usefully discuss how the tonnage of carbon emissions from all surface shipping is close to that of the half million of so jet flights and how energy efficiencies for these industries are now being worked on.
In sum, the broad synthesis of this book is admirable in its ambition, inevitably short on substance in many areas, but likely to provide fascinating details and perspective in other areas for most readers.
After a brief tour of 130 million years of geological and biological evolution, the author brings humans on the Atlantic stage with the peoples of Mediterranean civilizations mythologizing the apparently endless sea and then lowing learning to venture beyond the Pillars of Hercules. First the Phoenicians, then the Vikings, and later the Western Europeans and their conquering and colonizing forces. The Vikings and Danes first landed and lived in America, but this knowledge was not widely disseminated. It took a decade of crossings after Columbus for the concept to sink in that the Atlantic was a finite but distinct ocean and the New World a separate continent from Asia.
As the forbidding barrier of the Atlantic was transformed into a doorway, we get the successive ages of man through exploration then competition in exploitation, ending with the prospect of exhausting its resources and destructive impacts on its ecology. Though much of this history may be known to many prospective readers, you may be charmed like me by the way he sweeps through all the transitions with interludes of fascinating detail and highlights from personal experiences. The progressive development of transportation capacity from sail to steam to air travel is a big sweep of his story. Interludes on the first scheduled mail, passenger, and shipping services were of special interest due to being unknown to me. The evolution of naval warfare, history of airflight, and changing conceptions of the sea through literature and art were too compressed to add much to what I knew (other readers may appreciate the synthesis). The history of charting of the ocean bottom and challenges of laying the first transatlantic telegraph cables was new and interesting to me.
Due to my having lived on the Atlantic shore of New England for 35 years, all his descriptions of rocky coasts, storms and fog, and the dangerous chill waters he presents from various sites in the North Atlantic were not so compelling to me. Perhaps not for others. I actually worked out of small boats in eastern Maine for a couple of years with a failing Nori seaweed acquaculture operation, which killed much of any sense of romance about the Atlantic. Winchester’s visits to various ports and island sites of more southern, warmer Atlantic regions helped revive such feelings and unfulfilled desires for travel and adventure such as one gets from travel memoirs. Digressions in Tierra del Fuego, Capetown, the Falklands, St. Helena, and Tristan da Cunha were pleasant forays for me.
The boom and bust in the evolution of whaling and fishing was well done in such a compressed format, especially the story of the cod fishery of the Grand Banks (though not new for me). Unfortunately, he has only one sentence on aquaculture, which was a big deal from the 90’s where I live. That it takes 10 pounds of herring to raise one pound of salmon is a fact that disillusioned me after initial enthusiasm. In the end phases of the book pollution and global warming represent a big theme for his Seven Ages scheme, but he hardly goes beyond the most basic science. For example, he doesn’t even touch on the carbon cycle or the worldwide decline of coral (in recent years linked to acidification of ocean water). He does usefully discuss how the tonnage of carbon emissions from all surface shipping is close to that of the half million of so jet flights and how energy efficiencies for these industries are now being worked on.
In sum, the broad synthesis of this book is admirable in its ambition, inevitably short on substance in many areas, but likely to provide fascinating details and perspective in other areas for most readers.
May 14, 2025
"… gray and heaving, washing and waiting, extending out to the deeps … "
The inside flap of Simon Winchester’s lengthy chunkster ATLANTIC is a great summary of the book in general terms:
"ATLANTIC is a biography of a tremendous space that has been central to the ambitions of explorers, scientists, and warriors, and continues profoundly to affect our character, attitudes, and dreams. Poets and potentates, seers and sailors, fishermen and foresters – all have had a relationship with this great body of gray and heaving sea and regarded her as friend or foe, bridge or barrier, depending on circumstance and fortune."
In somewhat less poetic terms, ATLANTIC moves from the tectonic formation of this vast body of water in the mists of antiquity through the various stages of its participation in the history of man upon the earth such as exploration and discovery, colonization, imperialism, warfare and violence, transportation, communication, exploitation, pollution and, as one would expect today, anthropogenic climate warming.
When I review non-fiction, I often use Simon Winchester as an example of an author who can write non-fiction in a style that is as gripping and as compelling as a good novel. KRAKATOA: THE DAY THE WORLD EXPLODED and A CRACK IN THE EDGE OF THE WORLD stand out as examples of this ability. Both of them thrilled me to my toes at the same time as they were passing along great gobbets of new pieces of information in a myriad of areas of human learning – history, geography, natural science, sociology and anthropology come quickly to mind. Unfortunately, this time around, while ATLANTIC easily made the grade insofar as the educational side of that comment is concerned, it often failed to reach the standard of gripping or compelling. My guess is that the breadth of the topic and the enormous diversity of the sub-topics simply made it impossible to write a book that seemed to be linear in nature with any kind of underlying story that had anything that might be characterized as a compelling plot-line.
That said, I’m happy to recommend ATLANTIC to non-fiction fans and to move my copy of PACIFIC to a position that will shortly bring it to the top of my TBR list.
Paul Weiss
The inside flap of Simon Winchester’s lengthy chunkster ATLANTIC is a great summary of the book in general terms:
"ATLANTIC is a biography of a tremendous space that has been central to the ambitions of explorers, scientists, and warriors, and continues profoundly to affect our character, attitudes, and dreams. Poets and potentates, seers and sailors, fishermen and foresters – all have had a relationship with this great body of gray and heaving sea and regarded her as friend or foe, bridge or barrier, depending on circumstance and fortune."
In somewhat less poetic terms, ATLANTIC moves from the tectonic formation of this vast body of water in the mists of antiquity through the various stages of its participation in the history of man upon the earth such as exploration and discovery, colonization, imperialism, warfare and violence, transportation, communication, exploitation, pollution and, as one would expect today, anthropogenic climate warming.
When I review non-fiction, I often use Simon Winchester as an example of an author who can write non-fiction in a style that is as gripping and as compelling as a good novel. KRAKATOA: THE DAY THE WORLD EXPLODED and A CRACK IN THE EDGE OF THE WORLD stand out as examples of this ability. Both of them thrilled me to my toes at the same time as they were passing along great gobbets of new pieces of information in a myriad of areas of human learning – history, geography, natural science, sociology and anthropology come quickly to mind. Unfortunately, this time around, while ATLANTIC easily made the grade insofar as the educational side of that comment is concerned, it often failed to reach the standard of gripping or compelling. My guess is that the breadth of the topic and the enormous diversity of the sub-topics simply made it impossible to write a book that seemed to be linear in nature with any kind of underlying story that had anything that might be characterized as a compelling plot-line.
That said, I’m happy to recommend ATLANTIC to non-fiction fans and to move my copy of PACIFIC to a position that will shortly bring it to the top of my TBR list.
Paul Weiss
March 9, 2011
I can't be objective about this guy. I listened to this as a talking book - and I just love this guy's voice. I could listen to him reading the telephone directory and still be fascinated. This is a 'let me tell you everything I know about the Atlantic' kind of book. He tries to give it a structure, but really, this is just someone very intelligent talking about something they are very interested in.
The stuff towards the end about the damage we are doing to the ocean - particularly the fish that once were there - is very disturbing. One of my favourite polymaths - and there is no higher praise than that.
The stuff towards the end about the damage we are doing to the ocean - particularly the fish that once were there - is very disturbing. One of my favourite polymaths - and there is no higher praise than that.
January 25, 2011
Oh, dear, Simon Winchester, I think you have to stop being my literary boyfriend now. Someone get this man an editor, quickly. I've never skipped over so many pages of a book before.
It's not that he hasn't dug up fascinating facts and interesting tidbits. It's just that it feels like he took all his notes on 3 x5 cards, then threw them in a pile on the floor and wrote the book like that. I'm reading an interesting description of St. Helena, and then there are poems? A passing mention of how the first people to lay undersea cables were woefully unprepared for the peaks and valleys of the ocean floor and then, somehow, we're talking about Benjamin Franklin. The ocean as a lover? Oy.
It's not that he hasn't dug up fascinating facts and interesting tidbits. It's just that it feels like he took all his notes on 3 x5 cards, then threw them in a pile on the floor and wrote the book like that. I'm reading an interesting description of St. Helena, and then there are poems? A passing mention of how the first people to lay undersea cables were woefully unprepared for the peaks and valleys of the ocean floor and then, somehow, we're talking about Benjamin Franklin. The ocean as a lover? Oy.
June 3, 2024
I suspect that to really savor this book, one has to accept the author's premise: treating the Atlantic Ocean as the subject of a biography. In fact the original title was to be, "The Atlantic--A Biography". Simon Winchester once commented that the premise for & structure of a book are more important than the actual story or the words used to tell it.
While there are sections of this book, paralleling the 7 stages of man, as listed in Shakespeare's As You Like It, that do tend to seem less compelling than others, I still enjoyed the book very much, in part because the author is such a wonderful storyteller, so much so that one feels at times like a fellow traveler, in tow with Simon through the various ages & stages of the ocean.
Of course this book is much different than the tales involving fascinating characters such as Wm. Minor in The Professor & the Madman" or Joseph Needham in The Man Who Loved China.
However, since Winchester portrays the Atlantic Ocean as a "living thing--furiously & demonstrably so, forever roaring, thundering, boiling, crashing, swelling, lapping, trying to draw breath & mimicking nearly perfectly the steady inhalations & exhalations of a living creature", one absorbs the author's various details, including a wide sweep of data & geologic terminology, gradually placing them into a broader structural context. Sometimes, this does take a bit of patience on the part of the reader but ultimately, it seemed to me like taking a voyage, with an overlapping theme of discovery.
Among the details that eventually frame a broader picture are the laying of the trans-Atlantic cable to facilitate communication across the ocean, the verification of Leif Erikson's "discovery" of the New World in 1001, though already inhabited by Native Americans, confirmed by a map found in New Haven in 1957.
There is also the loathsome accounts of slave ships, all becoming rather like a genealogical chart of all who traversed the great ocean, as well as an epic saga of the life of the Atlantic, including "the thousand things & people & beasts & events that act as a reminder of the immense complexity of the ocean that has been pivotal to the human story".
Sometimes, it is the commentary about characters less well-known to readers that seems most memorable, including the mention of Rachel Carson, who did so much to bring marine ecology into focus for the non-scientist.
The author also recounts how the Atlantic Ocean has keenly inspired various writers, including Herman Melville, Walt Whitman & Goethe, artists such as Turner & Monet and composers, including Sir Benjamin Britten, Sir Edward Elgar + Richard Wagner's opera, The Flying Dutchman.
What seems to captivate me most about Simon Winchester's books is his intersection with fascinating characters, in many cases not previously familiar to the reader, including a comment from the last remaining survivor, Sidney Palmer, of the wreck of the "Dunedin Star" along the Skeleton Coast of Namibia, SW Africa. As it turns out, the author had visited a small, isolated memorial to the ship's captain, Angus Macintyre, lost at sea while trying to rescue others.
Simon had considered that his leaving of a small token at the memorial might have seemed somehow sentimental but Mr. Palmer, a retired British diplomat who read the account in this book, reminds the author by email, that no generous gesture, however "sentimental" is wasted and on behalf of all of the passengers of the ship on its last voyage, thanks Simon for his thoughtfulness, with this footnote a part of an epilogue. It is such details that lift Simon Winchester far beyond the realm of most authors.
While there are sections of this book, paralleling the 7 stages of man, as listed in Shakespeare's As You Like It, that do tend to seem less compelling than others, I still enjoyed the book very much, in part because the author is such a wonderful storyteller, so much so that one feels at times like a fellow traveler, in tow with Simon through the various ages & stages of the ocean.
Of course this book is much different than the tales involving fascinating characters such as Wm. Minor in The Professor & the Madman" or Joseph Needham in The Man Who Loved China.
However, since Winchester portrays the Atlantic Ocean as a "living thing--furiously & demonstrably so, forever roaring, thundering, boiling, crashing, swelling, lapping, trying to draw breath & mimicking nearly perfectly the steady inhalations & exhalations of a living creature", one absorbs the author's various details, including a wide sweep of data & geologic terminology, gradually placing them into a broader structural context. Sometimes, this does take a bit of patience on the part of the reader but ultimately, it seemed to me like taking a voyage, with an overlapping theme of discovery.
Among the details that eventually frame a broader picture are the laying of the trans-Atlantic cable to facilitate communication across the ocean, the verification of Leif Erikson's "discovery" of the New World in 1001, though already inhabited by Native Americans, confirmed by a map found in New Haven in 1957.
There is also the loathsome accounts of slave ships, all becoming rather like a genealogical chart of all who traversed the great ocean, as well as an epic saga of the life of the Atlantic, including "the thousand things & people & beasts & events that act as a reminder of the immense complexity of the ocean that has been pivotal to the human story".
Sometimes, it is the commentary about characters less well-known to readers that seems most memorable, including the mention of Rachel Carson, who did so much to bring marine ecology into focus for the non-scientist.
The author also recounts how the Atlantic Ocean has keenly inspired various writers, including Herman Melville, Walt Whitman & Goethe, artists such as Turner & Monet and composers, including Sir Benjamin Britten, Sir Edward Elgar + Richard Wagner's opera, The Flying Dutchman.
What seems to captivate me most about Simon Winchester's books is his intersection with fascinating characters, in many cases not previously familiar to the reader, including a comment from the last remaining survivor, Sidney Palmer, of the wreck of the "Dunedin Star" along the Skeleton Coast of Namibia, SW Africa. As it turns out, the author had visited a small, isolated memorial to the ship's captain, Angus Macintyre, lost at sea while trying to rescue others.
Simon had considered that his leaving of a small token at the memorial might have seemed somehow sentimental but Mr. Palmer, a retired British diplomat who read the account in this book, reminds the author by email, that no generous gesture, however "sentimental" is wasted and on behalf of all of the passengers of the ship on its last voyage, thanks Simon for his thoughtfulness, with this footnote a part of an epilogue. It is such details that lift Simon Winchester far beyond the realm of most authors.
October 27, 2020
Winchester has had a lifetime of Atlantic crossings, and can weave his personal accounts in with those of vast numbers of other voyagers down the centuries. It's a rambling and enthusiastic book, full of historical lore and incredibly detailed vocabulary. It features the drama of geological plate tectonics, but mostly focuses on Western man, especially English man, at sea. There's the early explorers, the seaside cities, the naval wars, and commercial advances. Only late in the book does Winchester look seriously at the life within the sea. He never gets really oceanographical, and includes no accounts of undersea explorers. Still, the accounts of overfishing and global warming are gripping. Maybe the best part is the fascinating and informative but admittedly speculative writing on how the seas may be changing -- chemically, biologically, and climatically. Always the concern is on how humans and the ocean affect each other's lives. Winchester's conviction that the Atlantic is at the core of human history is Eurocentric, but his appreciation for the sea's majesty is pretty universal.
March 10, 2019
Part science, part history, this ambitious non-fiction includes almost every aspect of the Atlantic Ocean. It covers a diverse array of topics such as its origins, discovery of the gulf stream, early inventions for maritime navigation, explorations, famous shipwrecks, piracy, the slave trade, maritime battles, migration, commerce by ship and air, artistic and literary references, information dissemination, global warming, and predicted lifespan. The author includes many of his own anecdotes from his travels and time as a journalist.
The book has its ups and downs. The amount of material covered is staggering. Certain sections are illuminating, while others are less successful. The author took a shotgun approach to relaying the material, and it was easy to get lost in the minutia. I was occasionally tempted to disengage while he cited various statistics. Listening to the audio book enhanced my enjoyment of this book that might otherwise have been a bit dull. Simon Winchester is an excellent reader with a mellifluous voice. Overall, I learned a great deal about the Atlantic and recommend the audio version to those interested in the science and history of the earth’s bodies of water.
The book has its ups and downs. The amount of material covered is staggering. Certain sections are illuminating, while others are less successful. The author took a shotgun approach to relaying the material, and it was easy to get lost in the minutia. I was occasionally tempted to disengage while he cited various statistics. Listening to the audio book enhanced my enjoyment of this book that might otherwise have been a bit dull. Simon Winchester is an excellent reader with a mellifluous voice. Overall, I learned a great deal about the Atlantic and recommend the audio version to those interested in the science and history of the earth’s bodies of water.
January 22, 2011
This is a very enjoyable book; it covers many aspects of the Atlantic Ocean. The book describes its formation and its ultimate end, exploration, the use of the ocean for commerce, for food, for battles, and the inspiration the ocean has for literature, art and music. And of course, the book contains some stories of shipwrecks and of the ecological damage that people have inflicted on the ocean.
Unlike some of the other reviews, I found this book to be an easy read. Winchester writes in a delightful, literary, almost poetic style. The physical book itself is quite attractive; the newly designed attractive typeface took me by surprise. (Some more editing is needed--there are quite a few typos.) There are plenty of small, black-and-white illustrations that add to the stories.
Unlike some of the other reviews, I found this book to be an easy read. Winchester writes in a delightful, literary, almost poetic style. The physical book itself is quite attractive; the newly designed attractive typeface took me by surprise. (Some more editing is needed--there are quite a few typos.) There are plenty of small, black-and-white illustrations that add to the stories.
August 3, 2013
As a fan of historical nautical books like Seawolves and Barrow's Boys, and of Golding's Ends of the Earth series, I started this book figuratively rubbing my hands in anticipation of some great sea stories and novel science facts to quote to people down the pub. But after about 70 pages I couldn't stand it anymore.
One reason was Winchester's explanation of the thematic thread of the book, a story arc following the idea of Shakespeare's seven ages of man. That it needed explanation just pointed out how weak the idea was. The Atlantic will apparently cease to be an ocean in several million years, but that doesn't mean that a once proud body of water will senesce and die, leaving people mourning its loss. Perhaps that could be appropriate for the Aral Sea, which has been shrunk by human activity within a period of human memory, but we are talking about geological time with the Atlantic. The seven ages concept is just a poor effort to turn the subject into some kind of persona and it doesn't fit.
The second reason is that there is some really sloppy writing going on. Winchester's description of prehistoric man walking down to the sea is what Berger would have called "Mystification". Winchester could have speculated about the event at a remove, but he has to take us walking alongside our neanderthal chum in a way that's just silly. Likewise we get a description of a series of "Unbearably huge" volcanic explosions several million years ago, begging the question of who was around at the time to find them so hard to bear. Then- possibly the clincher for me- is the sentence where some tectonic plates move "infinitely faster" than they had several thousand years ago. If a sixth-former had put that into an essay, I'd hope that their teacher would have told them to take it out.
Winchester starts the book well telling about the sea that inspired him so much as a young man, and I was really willing to go on the voyage with him (so to speak, ahem) through the book, but I predicted that if he was going to mangle up scientific research and facts with such carelessly flowery writing, then I wouldn't be able to enjoy my trip.
One reason was Winchester's explanation of the thematic thread of the book, a story arc following the idea of Shakespeare's seven ages of man. That it needed explanation just pointed out how weak the idea was. The Atlantic will apparently cease to be an ocean in several million years, but that doesn't mean that a once proud body of water will senesce and die, leaving people mourning its loss. Perhaps that could be appropriate for the Aral Sea, which has been shrunk by human activity within a period of human memory, but we are talking about geological time with the Atlantic. The seven ages concept is just a poor effort to turn the subject into some kind of persona and it doesn't fit.
The second reason is that there is some really sloppy writing going on. Winchester's description of prehistoric man walking down to the sea is what Berger would have called "Mystification". Winchester could have speculated about the event at a remove, but he has to take us walking alongside our neanderthal chum in a way that's just silly. Likewise we get a description of a series of "Unbearably huge" volcanic explosions several million years ago, begging the question of who was around at the time to find them so hard to bear. Then- possibly the clincher for me- is the sentence where some tectonic plates move "infinitely faster" than they had several thousand years ago. If a sixth-former had put that into an essay, I'd hope that their teacher would have told them to take it out.
Winchester starts the book well telling about the sea that inspired him so much as a young man, and I was really willing to go on the voyage with him (so to speak, ahem) through the book, but I predicted that if he was going to mangle up scientific research and facts with such carelessly flowery writing, then I wouldn't be able to enjoy my trip.
Did Not Finish
June 13, 2025I'm calling time on this one for now. I really enjoyed the first third roughly - fascinating reading. However it's gone off the boil for me and no longer demanding my attention. May well return to it though.
October 7, 2017
This will be short and not too sweet. I have enjoyed some of Winchester's books and others have left me cold. This one left me tepid. He attempts to cover every aspect of the Atlantic Ocean....a biography of the lifeline between the Americas and Europe/Africa and there is just too damn much to tell. His description of the geological beginnings and fantastic maps of the forming of that great body of water are quite fascinating but then things start to go down hill. He adds a surfeit of personal stories/experiences that interrupt the narrative and had me skipping pages. Granted, there are some very interesting sections but there doesn't seem to be much rhyme or reason as to how the author arranges his information even though he uses the Seven Stages of Man from Shakespeare's As You Like It. It just doesn't quite jell.
February 21, 2016
This “biography” of the Atlantic ocean is not a straightforward, objective history, not even trying to be. The tone of the book was a bit surprising: how dreamy and abstract Winchester’s attitude towards the Atlantic is! He opens with a journey he once took from England to Montreal by ship, and as he recalls what it felt like traversing the Atlantic for the first time, we can almost see Winchester getting all misty-eyed. He heightens his prose. He reaches for the paint brush. He waxes poetic. The Atlantic ocean breathes, Winchester informs us. It has moods. The Pacific is primarily blue, and fringed with palm trees and coral reefs, but the Atlantic is something else entirely, a “gray and heaving sea...storm-bound and heavy.” He goes on like that for a while. His metaphorical musings on the Atlantic are actually magnificent, and deeply evocative, and they alert us immediately to Winchester’s real purpose in this book, which is not to explore an actual, real Atlantic ocean at all, but rather to create a myth of the Atlantic, a concept. This book is an attempt to capture the MEANING of the Atlantic. If the calm Mediterranean was a symbol of the Ancient world, then the Atlantic is the symbol of the modern age. We are living in a pan-Atlantic civilization, he argues, consisting of the world's most influential countries over the last thousand years, and it behooves us therefore to come to terms with what the Atlantic ocean really means, since it's at the center of our modern existence.
Following from this rather subjective purpose, Winchester has chosen a rather subjective form for his narrative. For this book, he clearly draws from the Herodotus school of history writing, which is fine, because if you can’t gain inspiration from the Father of History, who can you gain it from? Thus, in his grappling with this massive subject, Winchester, like Herodotus before him, freely intermingles historical record, personal anecdote, literary reference, scientific treatise, and everything in between, whatever spirit moves him, showing no qualms whatever in using a personal experience, a conversation he once had with a friend, say, as a doorway into a broader subject. He attacks the ocean from many sides, dividing his book along thematic lines (which only vaguely intersect with chronological lines), and the effect of all this is to make this book into a highly personal journey through Winchester’s ideas about the ocean, the Atlantic tapestry he perceives as holding the modern world together. He tries in vain to make the whole thing coalesce, and very often the threads of this tapestry are weak and stretched far beyond endurance, but hey - Herodotus never found The Key to All Mythologies regarding the Greco-Persian Wars, so why should we fault Winchester for not finding it for the Atlantic? The Atlantic clearly has no single meaning, no unifying identity or character, no matter how hard the writer wishes it so, and his purpose, then, may have been doomed from the start. Still, what he does achieve is to present enough interesting facts and stories about the world, some, I would argue, relating to the Atlantic only tangentially, to make this “biography” of the ocean well worth a read. It's scattershot and hit-or-miss, but on the whole, he hits more often than he misses.
His first chapters are really quite gripping. He tries to make us see the Atlantic through the eyes of ancient peoples. We, of course, take the ocean for granted, chewing peanuts or dozing in airplanes as we fly tediously overhead, but for thousands of years, the Atlantic was a figure of awe, terror, and wonder, an insurmountable and seemingly eternal wilderness of deadly water and bottomless depths, to be feared and avoided and paid homage to. Winchester describes the cave at the southern tip of Africa, at Pinnacle Point, the first known place in history that people ever settled by the sea. He talks of the Phonecians and their brave forays into the ocean to catch snails that emit a purple dye, the Phonecians thus becoming the first Ancient people to ever cross the Pillars of Hercules into the Atlantic. The mystery surrounding the search for Erik’s Viking settlement in Newfoundland is told in extensive and compelling detail, and Winchester makes the case that this Viking family ought to be honoured more for being the first to cross the Atlantic (which they did 1000 years ago), and Columbus less. (It is hard to argue with that.) He then runs casually and rapidly over some of the more important explorations of the Portuguese and the Spanish at the end of the 15th century, when they first realized the Atlantic was a separate sea, most of which will be old news for anyone with a passing knowledge of that period. Winchester does, though, focus on something many may not know about, the discovery of the Gulf Stream. Once this phenomenon was discovered, Europeans had a fast, convenient way to scoot back home from the Americas, which is kind of cool.
Then, I hit a snag. Winchester chooses to spend pages and pages on the numerous achievements and blunderings of the fledgling science of oceanography, and I must admit, I’m afraid, that my eyes glazed over, though that may not be the experience for more science-focused readers. In these sections, he loses the human element. He presents a series of names and experiments and conclusions, all passing by in a whir, and it’s just too much to take in. When the sailors stepped back, as he puts it, and the scientists took center-stage, “some of the romance inevitably bled away.” Winchester has stated this aptly, as if aware himself of the dry and mundane nature of these scientific advances compared to the earlier epic journeys by ship into the great unknown. Nevertheless, he pursues the subject. I found most of this section hard-going.
His next chapter explores the relationship that art and literature have had with the Atlantic over the centuries. A chapter on art? Sure! Why not? Shakespeare’s The Tempest, he is glad to point out, may have been inspired by an English shipwreck on the coast of Bermuda! He mentions various artists and their representations of the Atlantic, emphasizing the transition in these representations from before the Enlightenment, when they were more fearful and fanciful, to afterwards, when they became more curious and realistic. In this chapter, it became especially clear to me that Winchester is at his best when he speaks of the ocean poetically, communicating what feelings it has evoked, what images and myths have arisen from it. He is less successful when he lists paintings and buildings and operas that, over history, have had something to do with the Atlantic. In the section where he describes for pages and pages the various architectural styles that we find in several cities along both sides of the Atlantic coast, as if these architectures were all inspired by some unifying Atlantic character, I almost gave up on the book. I am glad I didn’t, but it was a tough go for a while. Compare these dry lists to this wonderful anecdote Winchester sticks in about a man he once met, an Argentine Navy man, who took pleasure at the sinking of a British boat during the Falklands War. Years later, when Winchester met this man again, the man regretted his earlier jubilation, since no Navy man should ever glory at the death of another sailor. To die alone at sea, the man told Winchester, is horrible. The man said, “There is a Brotherhood of the sea.” What a lovely moment! I often found these sorts of quiet, affecting scenes a relief from all the daunting lists of scientific experiments and paintings and architectural styles Winchester occasionally supplies us with. These quieter moments of character are sprinkled throughout the text, and I liked them.
Thankfully, Winchester next gets into history, where the book really comes alive. He offers a fascinating historical overview of how the Mediterranean was replaced by the Atlantic as the center of the Western world in the 15th century. The Muslims had blockaded both ends of the inner sea, blocking all routes to Asia, so the European powers all turned West, for plunder, for trade, and for knowledge. This serves as the introduction to an extremely compelling set of chapters largely about war on the high seas, starting with a narrative about 16th-17th century Atlantic piracy and the slave trade. These pirate and slave stories are horrifying, full of cruelty and drama and incomprehensible violence (real-life pirates, it turns out, were much more violent than their literary counterparts. Forget walking the plank: these guys sometimes pulled your entrails out, nailed them to the floor, and made you walk away as they unfurled from your body.) Winchester tells these stories as if he were there, and as if they disgust him. Again, I applauded the personal nature of this book, as he inserted his views and feelings whenever he could. Oceanic war tactics, he then explains, evolved to quash both the pirates and the slave traders, but of course these tactics could then be used against anybody, any enemy nation. Winchester discusses the switch from sea battles within sight of land to battles in the deep of the sea, a very different sort of battle that changed the world utterly. Sea conflict could now take place anywhere in the ocean, and became progressively more ferocious. Eventually, over the centuries, sailing ships were replaced by castles of steel and iron, and ocean warfare became as bloody and shocking and inhuman (and un-romantic) as it ever had been on land. He talks of submarine warfare in the two World Wars, the sinking of the Lusitania, the debate (which seems hopelessly quaint today) over the “rules” of ocean warfare (like a gentleman’s agreement). He discusses the Battle of the Atlantic, the 6-year ocean battle between the Allied submarines and ships, and the Nazi U-Boats, about which Winchester says, “More sailors died in the ocean during those 6 years than in all the ocean conflicts since the Romans sent out their invading expeditions 2000 years ago.” A bracing thought. The truth is, these chapters about pirates, slaves, soldiers, and warfare were, by quite a margin, the most involving of the book. Perhaps this says more about me than it does about the book. Or perhaps not.
Winchester then moves onto politics, and here is where it becomes very clear that a lot of the connections he makes between history and the Atlantic ocean are tenuous, arbitrary or superficial. He argues that parliamentary democracy is “an Atlantic creation,” because it was created in nations that touch the Atlantic. My reaction was to ask, “So?” This began to feel like a fun game to pass the time, like pointing out white Volkswagon Beetles on a long road trip. “What else can we credit the Atlantic for?” the book seems to ask. (At one point, Winchester suggests a link between the Atlantic and the formation of the State of Israel - don’t ask.)
And then came the dry stuff again. The structure Winchester chose for his book obligated him, I suppose, to go from pirates and slave traders to pages and pages of the technical methods, approaches, and tools used by the Basques to capture codfish. Sigh.
The next chapter deals with our pollution of the ocean, which is clearly something that stirs Winchester’s blood (as it should ours), along with the horrible ramifications of overfishing. One of the more powerful images in the book, and also more disturbing, is of the fish factory boats trawling along the bottom of the ocean, smoothly scooping the cod (and their eggs) off the bottom by the thousands of tons. There is something about the mechanical efficiency, the bloodless determination, of that act that just seems so….unfair. To the fish. Winchester captures that. The discussion around the decimation of the cod fishing industry in Newfoundland is enthralling, and in fact the whole section on fish depletion in the Atlantic is probably the most passionate section of the book. It may be where Winchester's heart truly lies. The final chapter continues the discussion of ocean sustainability by bringing in the topic of climate change, and the rising of the ocean levels. He discusses the measures being taken by New York, London, and the Netherlands, lest the ocean levels begin to threaten their existence. (I love his solution to the recent spat of fatal hurricanes hitting coastal communities around the planet - “stop living in villages by the ocean!”) The entire last two chapters, about pullution, overfishing, oil spills, and climate change, are powerfully written, emotionally-laden, and important. I appreciated them very much.
His epilogue is about the likely future of the Atlantic ocean, and describes the continents moving about the Earth and colliding with one another in various possible configurations like bumper cars. Eventually, he intones dramatically, the Atlantic ocean will cease to be. It had a birth, it had a life, and in about 190 million years, it will have a death. A large part of the weakness of this book, I think, can be ascertained by this epilogue. He speaks of its birth and lifespan and death as if we should be sentimental about it, about the future demise of the Atlantic ocean. We have been taking it for granted, he has argued, by polluting it, by overfishing it, by killing its life. And he is right that those are unfortunate things. But that is damage being done to the whole of planet Earth, not just to the Atlantic specifically. The problem is, I just didn’t care about the Atlantic specifically. I don’t think you will either. Despite Winchester’s best efforts throughout the book, I fail to see the Atlantic as a single, bounded entity, with an essential identity and a set of characteristics and specific, localized history, a thing we should cherish and, when it’s gone, mourn. Things happen around it, things happen in it, things happen to it, but if the only thing all these events have in common is a connection with the Atlantic ocean, then they have nothing in common. It’s just a bunch of water! Am I a philistine? Maybe. But I don't think so. Even “the Atlantic” is an arbitrary, man-made invention, a part of the world ocean that we decided, for our own trivial convenience, to give a separate name to. I remain unconvinced that it has its own separate identity, a continuity of selfhood, that we should examine as its own precious thing. That was clearly Winchester's purpose, and on that score, the book is a failure.
So why read it? Well, as I hope to have made clear, there is a lot of interesting stuff here. The book, in fact, is not a failure, because it does other things, at times very well. Some chapters will grab you more than others, and the whole enterprise fails to achieve the goal it reaches for so strenuously, but Winchester has a charming, intimate prose style, a way with an anecdote, and a refreshingly moral approach to history and geography, and he is worth spending a few hours with, at the very least. At worst, you might learn something.
Following from this rather subjective purpose, Winchester has chosen a rather subjective form for his narrative. For this book, he clearly draws from the Herodotus school of history writing, which is fine, because if you can’t gain inspiration from the Father of History, who can you gain it from? Thus, in his grappling with this massive subject, Winchester, like Herodotus before him, freely intermingles historical record, personal anecdote, literary reference, scientific treatise, and everything in between, whatever spirit moves him, showing no qualms whatever in using a personal experience, a conversation he once had with a friend, say, as a doorway into a broader subject. He attacks the ocean from many sides, dividing his book along thematic lines (which only vaguely intersect with chronological lines), and the effect of all this is to make this book into a highly personal journey through Winchester’s ideas about the ocean, the Atlantic tapestry he perceives as holding the modern world together. He tries in vain to make the whole thing coalesce, and very often the threads of this tapestry are weak and stretched far beyond endurance, but hey - Herodotus never found The Key to All Mythologies regarding the Greco-Persian Wars, so why should we fault Winchester for not finding it for the Atlantic? The Atlantic clearly has no single meaning, no unifying identity or character, no matter how hard the writer wishes it so, and his purpose, then, may have been doomed from the start. Still, what he does achieve is to present enough interesting facts and stories about the world, some, I would argue, relating to the Atlantic only tangentially, to make this “biography” of the ocean well worth a read. It's scattershot and hit-or-miss, but on the whole, he hits more often than he misses.
His first chapters are really quite gripping. He tries to make us see the Atlantic through the eyes of ancient peoples. We, of course, take the ocean for granted, chewing peanuts or dozing in airplanes as we fly tediously overhead, but for thousands of years, the Atlantic was a figure of awe, terror, and wonder, an insurmountable and seemingly eternal wilderness of deadly water and bottomless depths, to be feared and avoided and paid homage to. Winchester describes the cave at the southern tip of Africa, at Pinnacle Point, the first known place in history that people ever settled by the sea. He talks of the Phonecians and their brave forays into the ocean to catch snails that emit a purple dye, the Phonecians thus becoming the first Ancient people to ever cross the Pillars of Hercules into the Atlantic. The mystery surrounding the search for Erik’s Viking settlement in Newfoundland is told in extensive and compelling detail, and Winchester makes the case that this Viking family ought to be honoured more for being the first to cross the Atlantic (which they did 1000 years ago), and Columbus less. (It is hard to argue with that.) He then runs casually and rapidly over some of the more important explorations of the Portuguese and the Spanish at the end of the 15th century, when they first realized the Atlantic was a separate sea, most of which will be old news for anyone with a passing knowledge of that period. Winchester does, though, focus on something many may not know about, the discovery of the Gulf Stream. Once this phenomenon was discovered, Europeans had a fast, convenient way to scoot back home from the Americas, which is kind of cool.
Then, I hit a snag. Winchester chooses to spend pages and pages on the numerous achievements and blunderings of the fledgling science of oceanography, and I must admit, I’m afraid, that my eyes glazed over, though that may not be the experience for more science-focused readers. In these sections, he loses the human element. He presents a series of names and experiments and conclusions, all passing by in a whir, and it’s just too much to take in. When the sailors stepped back, as he puts it, and the scientists took center-stage, “some of the romance inevitably bled away.” Winchester has stated this aptly, as if aware himself of the dry and mundane nature of these scientific advances compared to the earlier epic journeys by ship into the great unknown. Nevertheless, he pursues the subject. I found most of this section hard-going.
His next chapter explores the relationship that art and literature have had with the Atlantic over the centuries. A chapter on art? Sure! Why not? Shakespeare’s The Tempest, he is glad to point out, may have been inspired by an English shipwreck on the coast of Bermuda! He mentions various artists and their representations of the Atlantic, emphasizing the transition in these representations from before the Enlightenment, when they were more fearful and fanciful, to afterwards, when they became more curious and realistic. In this chapter, it became especially clear to me that Winchester is at his best when he speaks of the ocean poetically, communicating what feelings it has evoked, what images and myths have arisen from it. He is less successful when he lists paintings and buildings and operas that, over history, have had something to do with the Atlantic. In the section where he describes for pages and pages the various architectural styles that we find in several cities along both sides of the Atlantic coast, as if these architectures were all inspired by some unifying Atlantic character, I almost gave up on the book. I am glad I didn’t, but it was a tough go for a while. Compare these dry lists to this wonderful anecdote Winchester sticks in about a man he once met, an Argentine Navy man, who took pleasure at the sinking of a British boat during the Falklands War. Years later, when Winchester met this man again, the man regretted his earlier jubilation, since no Navy man should ever glory at the death of another sailor. To die alone at sea, the man told Winchester, is horrible. The man said, “There is a Brotherhood of the sea.” What a lovely moment! I often found these sorts of quiet, affecting scenes a relief from all the daunting lists of scientific experiments and paintings and architectural styles Winchester occasionally supplies us with. These quieter moments of character are sprinkled throughout the text, and I liked them.
Thankfully, Winchester next gets into history, where the book really comes alive. He offers a fascinating historical overview of how the Mediterranean was replaced by the Atlantic as the center of the Western world in the 15th century. The Muslims had blockaded both ends of the inner sea, blocking all routes to Asia, so the European powers all turned West, for plunder, for trade, and for knowledge. This serves as the introduction to an extremely compelling set of chapters largely about war on the high seas, starting with a narrative about 16th-17th century Atlantic piracy and the slave trade. These pirate and slave stories are horrifying, full of cruelty and drama and incomprehensible violence (real-life pirates, it turns out, were much more violent than their literary counterparts. Forget walking the plank: these guys sometimes pulled your entrails out, nailed them to the floor, and made you walk away as they unfurled from your body.) Winchester tells these stories as if he were there, and as if they disgust him. Again, I applauded the personal nature of this book, as he inserted his views and feelings whenever he could. Oceanic war tactics, he then explains, evolved to quash both the pirates and the slave traders, but of course these tactics could then be used against anybody, any enemy nation. Winchester discusses the switch from sea battles within sight of land to battles in the deep of the sea, a very different sort of battle that changed the world utterly. Sea conflict could now take place anywhere in the ocean, and became progressively more ferocious. Eventually, over the centuries, sailing ships were replaced by castles of steel and iron, and ocean warfare became as bloody and shocking and inhuman (and un-romantic) as it ever had been on land. He talks of submarine warfare in the two World Wars, the sinking of the Lusitania, the debate (which seems hopelessly quaint today) over the “rules” of ocean warfare (like a gentleman’s agreement). He discusses the Battle of the Atlantic, the 6-year ocean battle between the Allied submarines and ships, and the Nazi U-Boats, about which Winchester says, “More sailors died in the ocean during those 6 years than in all the ocean conflicts since the Romans sent out their invading expeditions 2000 years ago.” A bracing thought. The truth is, these chapters about pirates, slaves, soldiers, and warfare were, by quite a margin, the most involving of the book. Perhaps this says more about me than it does about the book. Or perhaps not.
Winchester then moves onto politics, and here is where it becomes very clear that a lot of the connections he makes between history and the Atlantic ocean are tenuous, arbitrary or superficial. He argues that parliamentary democracy is “an Atlantic creation,” because it was created in nations that touch the Atlantic. My reaction was to ask, “So?” This began to feel like a fun game to pass the time, like pointing out white Volkswagon Beetles on a long road trip. “What else can we credit the Atlantic for?” the book seems to ask. (At one point, Winchester suggests a link between the Atlantic and the formation of the State of Israel - don’t ask.)
And then came the dry stuff again. The structure Winchester chose for his book obligated him, I suppose, to go from pirates and slave traders to pages and pages of the technical methods, approaches, and tools used by the Basques to capture codfish. Sigh.
The next chapter deals with our pollution of the ocean, which is clearly something that stirs Winchester’s blood (as it should ours), along with the horrible ramifications of overfishing. One of the more powerful images in the book, and also more disturbing, is of the fish factory boats trawling along the bottom of the ocean, smoothly scooping the cod (and their eggs) off the bottom by the thousands of tons. There is something about the mechanical efficiency, the bloodless determination, of that act that just seems so….unfair. To the fish. Winchester captures that. The discussion around the decimation of the cod fishing industry in Newfoundland is enthralling, and in fact the whole section on fish depletion in the Atlantic is probably the most passionate section of the book. It may be where Winchester's heart truly lies. The final chapter continues the discussion of ocean sustainability by bringing in the topic of climate change, and the rising of the ocean levels. He discusses the measures being taken by New York, London, and the Netherlands, lest the ocean levels begin to threaten their existence. (I love his solution to the recent spat of fatal hurricanes hitting coastal communities around the planet - “stop living in villages by the ocean!”) The entire last two chapters, about pullution, overfishing, oil spills, and climate change, are powerfully written, emotionally-laden, and important. I appreciated them very much.
His epilogue is about the likely future of the Atlantic ocean, and describes the continents moving about the Earth and colliding with one another in various possible configurations like bumper cars. Eventually, he intones dramatically, the Atlantic ocean will cease to be. It had a birth, it had a life, and in about 190 million years, it will have a death. A large part of the weakness of this book, I think, can be ascertained by this epilogue. He speaks of its birth and lifespan and death as if we should be sentimental about it, about the future demise of the Atlantic ocean. We have been taking it for granted, he has argued, by polluting it, by overfishing it, by killing its life. And he is right that those are unfortunate things. But that is damage being done to the whole of planet Earth, not just to the Atlantic specifically. The problem is, I just didn’t care about the Atlantic specifically. I don’t think you will either. Despite Winchester’s best efforts throughout the book, I fail to see the Atlantic as a single, bounded entity, with an essential identity and a set of characteristics and specific, localized history, a thing we should cherish and, when it’s gone, mourn. Things happen around it, things happen in it, things happen to it, but if the only thing all these events have in common is a connection with the Atlantic ocean, then they have nothing in common. It’s just a bunch of water! Am I a philistine? Maybe. But I don't think so. Even “the Atlantic” is an arbitrary, man-made invention, a part of the world ocean that we decided, for our own trivial convenience, to give a separate name to. I remain unconvinced that it has its own separate identity, a continuity of selfhood, that we should examine as its own precious thing. That was clearly Winchester's purpose, and on that score, the book is a failure.
So why read it? Well, as I hope to have made clear, there is a lot of interesting stuff here. The book, in fact, is not a failure, because it does other things, at times very well. Some chapters will grab you more than others, and the whole enterprise fails to achieve the goal it reaches for so strenuously, but Winchester has a charming, intimate prose style, a way with an anecdote, and a refreshingly moral approach to history and geography, and he is worth spending a few hours with, at the very least. At worst, you might learn something.
March 14, 2023
Listened to the audio version of this over a period of maybe 5 weeks. Never got dull. I particularly liked the personal stories that served as bookends . . . Simon Winchester crossing the Atlantic as a young man of 18 in a ship, headed for Montreal, and then at the end, visiting the Skeleton Coast across the ocean from Patagonia, where he paid homage to the seamen who died trying to rescue shipwrecked British citizens during WWII. In between those stories, we hear about the geology, geography, exploration, and history of the Atlantic Ocean as well as about the art and literature it has inspired.
On a BookTV interview, Winchester said that he always thought of the book as having the title Atlantic Ocean: a Biography but that marketing folks had changed it. I think biography is a good description. My favorite parts of the book were probably the personal stories and the history but the last section, about the pollution, the overfishing and then the microscopic newly discovered life in the ocean were probably the most important.
At times, I wished I were reading, rather than listening (although the author is an excellent narrator). I needed to take notes, to look up things. Winchester started out life as a geologist but soon morphed into a journalist (who covered the Falkland Wars among other things) and travel writer, then a full time author of all sorts of non fiction. This was my second book by Winchester but I don't plan for it to be my last. 4.5 stars
On a BookTV interview, Winchester said that he always thought of the book as having the title Atlantic Ocean: a Biography but that marketing folks had changed it. I think biography is a good description. My favorite parts of the book were probably the personal stories and the history but the last section, about the pollution, the overfishing and then the microscopic newly discovered life in the ocean were probably the most important.
At times, I wished I were reading, rather than listening (although the author is an excellent narrator). I needed to take notes, to look up things. Winchester started out life as a geologist but soon morphed into a journalist (who covered the Falkland Wars among other things) and travel writer, then a full time author of all sorts of non fiction. This was my second book by Winchester but I don't plan for it to be my last. 4.5 stars
Want to Read
September 2, 2019*****************
*The Professor and the Madman: A Tale of Murder, Insanity and the Making of the Oxford English Dictionary 4 stars
*The Man Who Loved China: The Fantastic Story of the Eccentric Scientist Who Unlocked the Mysteries of the Middle Kingdom 4 stars
*Atlantic: Great Sea Battles, Heroic Discoveries, Titanic Storms & a Vast Ocean of a Million Stories TBR
*Krakatoa: The Day the World Exploded: August 27, 1883 TBR
*The River at the Center of the World: A Journey Up the Yangtze & Back in Chinese Time TBR
*The Professor and the Madman: A Tale of Murder, Insanity and the Making of the Oxford English Dictionary 4 stars
*The Man Who Loved China: The Fantastic Story of the Eccentric Scientist Who Unlocked the Mysteries of the Middle Kingdom 4 stars
*Atlantic: Great Sea Battles, Heroic Discoveries, Titanic Storms & a Vast Ocean of a Million Stories TBR
*Krakatoa: The Day the World Exploded: August 27, 1883 TBR
*The River at the Center of the World: A Journey Up the Yangtze & Back in Chinese Time TBR
May 9, 2013
Like many others have commented, Winchester tried to cover way too much ground here with an over-reliance on questionable and mostly random "facts." The most interesting sections of the book were ones that covered a topic on which I had read much more in-depth, focused books. And what interest I did have in those sections came about simply because those other books had peaked my interest.
One truly frustrating aspect of this book was its Euro-centrism. Last time I checked, thousands of miles of South American, Central American, and African coastlines border the Atlantic in some capacity but these regions are largely glossed over or merely used as the background for European exploits. Furthermore, Winchester exhibits a most peculiar northern European bias; several prejudiced remarks are aimed at southern and/or Catholic populations, most especially the Irish, Spanish, and Italians, and the indigenous populations of North America also take a beating from Sir Winchester (my personal favorite is his use of the term "Eskimo" to describe the Dene; not only is Eskimo an outdated and insulting term, but he didn't even manage to apply it to the nation that it has traditionally described: the Inuit).
But most frustrating of all is the complete lack of sources for his often bizarre or irrelevant claims. Yes, there is a bibliography, but these titles are by-and-large secondary sources themselves. And one would have to do an awful lot of reading through these titles to find the source for some claim made by Winchester as he gives absolutely no indication of where he dug up any of his tidbits.
Throughout the book, Winchester seems quite enamored by the distances between two random points. A fun drinking game would be to have a shot every time he tells the reader how many miles separate two points on the map. In addition to that, if you have a shot each time Winchester inserts himself into the book you'll be drunk in no time (probably the first ten pages or so). And if you have a second shot for each time his personal anecdotes paint himself in a ridiculously good light, you'll certainly die of alcohol poisoning.
One truly frustrating aspect of this book was its Euro-centrism. Last time I checked, thousands of miles of South American, Central American, and African coastlines border the Atlantic in some capacity but these regions are largely glossed over or merely used as the background for European exploits. Furthermore, Winchester exhibits a most peculiar northern European bias; several prejudiced remarks are aimed at southern and/or Catholic populations, most especially the Irish, Spanish, and Italians, and the indigenous populations of North America also take a beating from Sir Winchester (my personal favorite is his use of the term "Eskimo" to describe the Dene; not only is Eskimo an outdated and insulting term, but he didn't even manage to apply it to the nation that it has traditionally described: the Inuit).
But most frustrating of all is the complete lack of sources for his often bizarre or irrelevant claims. Yes, there is a bibliography, but these titles are by-and-large secondary sources themselves. And one would have to do an awful lot of reading through these titles to find the source for some claim made by Winchester as he gives absolutely no indication of where he dug up any of his tidbits.
Throughout the book, Winchester seems quite enamored by the distances between two random points. A fun drinking game would be to have a shot every time he tells the reader how many miles separate two points on the map. In addition to that, if you have a shot each time Winchester inserts himself into the book you'll be drunk in no time (probably the first ten pages or so). And if you have a second shot for each time his personal anecdotes paint himself in a ridiculously good light, you'll certainly die of alcohol poisoning.
October 6, 2018
I never managed to get into this book. I think the scope was too broad and the smaller sub-topics were too brief and shallow to make for an interesting read. There is no cohesion to the book and Winchester bounces around from topic to topic, interspersing them with personal stories tangentially related to the Atlantic. Maybe if Winchester had narrowed down his list of things to cover, and get into more depth about fewer things, it would have been more informative and entertaining.
July 31, 2015
This was a very engaging read. I highly recommend to anyone with an interest in nautical history and the Atlantic Ocean. I enjoyed it immensely.
April 3, 2021
This is my favorite type of book -- history, science, geography, philosophy, literature mixed together throughout the narrative. I listened to the author read the book with its surprisingly poetic language for nonfiction. He structures the book using Shakespeare's Seven Ages of Man to discuss various aspects of such an enormous topic as the Atlantic Ocean: its birth, early explorers, ocean as theme in literature (lover), through many lenses, on to its death. Winchester is a master of the craft of narrative nonfiction.
February 3, 2020
Basically a collection of essays on the Atlantic, wide ranging and interesting, that covers things such as history, oceanography, literature, environment, seafaring, and a host of other topics. Winchester is a good writer and this is a nice addition to his bib. Surprisingly, most of the information I was pretty much familiar with, but there was still a lot of new things and refreshers, as well.
Read
December 27, 2024Some of this was very moving. Some of it was absurd. A small amount of it was wrong. (To be more specific, the book at times evoked the thrill of times past, and offered stirring sentiments about the sea; at other times trafficked in gross simplifications or generalizations; and occasionally made outright errors.)
March 5, 2017
I am noticing a pattern with his books- I am learning a lot, but when it gets dry occasionally, it really draaaaaaags on.
February 13, 2016
This was a very enjoyable book and I am very glad that I took Will’s recommendation and bought it sight unseen. I am pretty sure I will both re-read it and use it as a reference in future.
The book is kind of a biography of the Atlantic Ocean as seen by mankind. There is a brief introduction to its formation and information about its habits, tides, winds and other quirks are scattered throughout the book. The narrative is easy, familiar and personalised, I do not recall ever having read anything by this author before but his style is very readable and the book is peppered with personal experiences and recollections of his lifelong, ongoing relationship with the Atlantic Ocean.
The Atlantic is not a fast read at all it has taken me a couple of months to get through it. This is not a bad thing, it is because it is very full of information so that I have to be in the right frame of mind to sit down and read it for any length of time. The other thing is that it keeps waving enticing sidetracks of information under the reader’s nose; thus it was that I found myself googling early Atlantic oriented prose, narwhals and other misc after reading for a while.
Criticisms of this book, I always have some after all; The early human civilisation and expansion to the West are well covered. However after America is firmly settled it turns into less of an ‘Atlantic Ocean’ book and more of an “American Atlantic’ book. You get this with American authors, they get America-centric, one just grimaces and bears it but I do feel that a couple of chapters wandered off into American internal affairs too much. The other thing I didn’t like was how very Atlantic-centric, it was. Perhaps not surprising given the title of the book. I am however a Pacific Ocean ‘gal and I can’t get on board the notion that the Atlantic is the only ‘real’ Ocean.
For example “... the Atlantic Ocean will still be the centre of the human word.” [pgs 20-21], no dude, for people living on it, yes, however not all, or even most, people do live on the Atlantic. And another “...the sea –level problem is first and foremost an Atlantic problem...” [pg 411] What now? No, really, just... no!
Again, Americans, we just grin and bear them.
These small problems are redeemed in the last couple of chapters where ecological issued are presented, and the epilogue describing the geological future of the Atlantic is a graceful and poetic ending to a book I put down with the sense of a book well read.
The book is kind of a biography of the Atlantic Ocean as seen by mankind. There is a brief introduction to its formation and information about its habits, tides, winds and other quirks are scattered throughout the book. The narrative is easy, familiar and personalised, I do not recall ever having read anything by this author before but his style is very readable and the book is peppered with personal experiences and recollections of his lifelong, ongoing relationship with the Atlantic Ocean.
The Atlantic is not a fast read at all it has taken me a couple of months to get through it. This is not a bad thing, it is because it is very full of information so that I have to be in the right frame of mind to sit down and read it for any length of time. The other thing is that it keeps waving enticing sidetracks of information under the reader’s nose; thus it was that I found myself googling early Atlantic oriented prose, narwhals and other misc after reading for a while.
Criticisms of this book, I always have some after all; The early human civilisation and expansion to the West are well covered. However after America is firmly settled it turns into less of an ‘Atlantic Ocean’ book and more of an “American Atlantic’ book. You get this with American authors, they get America-centric, one just grimaces and bears it but I do feel that a couple of chapters wandered off into American internal affairs too much. The other thing I didn’t like was how very Atlantic-centric, it was. Perhaps not surprising given the title of the book. I am however a Pacific Ocean ‘gal and I can’t get on board the notion that the Atlantic is the only ‘real’ Ocean.
For example “... the Atlantic Ocean will still be the centre of the human word.” [pgs 20-21], no dude, for people living on it, yes, however not all, or even most, people do live on the Atlantic. And another “...the sea –level problem is first and foremost an Atlantic problem...” [pg 411] What now? No, really, just... no!
Again, Americans, we just grin and bear them.
These small problems are redeemed in the last couple of chapters where ecological issued are presented, and the epilogue describing the geological future of the Atlantic is a graceful and poetic ending to a book I put down with the sense of a book well read.
October 11, 2016
"One cannot but hang one's head in shame and abject frustration. We pollute the sea, we plunder the sea, we disdain the sea, we dishonor the sea that appears like a mere expanse of hammered pewter as we fly over it in our air-polluting planes--forgetting or ignoring all the while that the sea is the source of all the life on earth, the wellspring of us all."
That environmental theme pops up quite a bit in the narrative of Simon Winchester's "Atlantic: Great Sea Battles, Heroic Discoveries, Titanic storms, and a Vast Ocean of a Million Stories."
Winchester set out to write a book explaining all there is to know about the Atlantic, which he considers to be our most important ocean. An overwhelming task and one might doubt it's even possible. He may not have succeeded in his initial goal but he comes as close as anyone in writing a biography of our ocean.
He explains how the ocean was born, how people living on its shores reacted to it and how, most importantly, it has influenced the development of the civilized world. To do this, he tells tales of man's first attempts to go out on the water, pirates, naval battles, the development of sea-going commerce and other topics. He also includes numerous anecdotes from his personal experience with the ocean.
He fears for our future if we don't change and start treating our environment like a home and not a garbage pit.
I'm not opposed to space exploration. It has resulted in many benefits for mankind. Still, I wish just a portion of the money and the interest could be directed toward oceanography. This is the planet on which we live. I have no desire to go live on a barren rock where there's no other forms of life.
That environmental theme pops up quite a bit in the narrative of Simon Winchester's "Atlantic: Great Sea Battles, Heroic Discoveries, Titanic storms, and a Vast Ocean of a Million Stories."
Winchester set out to write a book explaining all there is to know about the Atlantic, which he considers to be our most important ocean. An overwhelming task and one might doubt it's even possible. He may not have succeeded in his initial goal but he comes as close as anyone in writing a biography of our ocean.
He explains how the ocean was born, how people living on its shores reacted to it and how, most importantly, it has influenced the development of the civilized world. To do this, he tells tales of man's first attempts to go out on the water, pirates, naval battles, the development of sea-going commerce and other topics. He also includes numerous anecdotes from his personal experience with the ocean.
He fears for our future if we don't change and start treating our environment like a home and not a garbage pit.
I'm not opposed to space exploration. It has resulted in many benefits for mankind. Still, I wish just a portion of the money and the interest could be directed toward oceanography. This is the planet on which we live. I have no desire to go live on a barren rock where there's no other forms of life.
November 30, 2010
I'm not sure why I thought I would like this book, given that I haven't liked Winchester's other work. I suppose it's because I've liked other book on maritime themes (e.g. The Outlaw Sea). By the time I made it through the opening anecdote about a transatlantic sea voyage and a drawn-out comparison to flying, and got to his plan to structure the book around the Seven Ages of Man from "As You Like It," I had already totally lost patience.
March 4, 2016
I couldn't finish it. It was too shallow & the writing was pretentious to the point of annoyance.
While some tidbits were interesting, but they went no where.
While some tidbits were interesting, but they went no where.
June 2, 2025
3.5/5 - I FINALLY picked this up as I was to be cruising the Atlantic so it felt appropriate. The text covers a broad range of things (as expected) and certain parts really captured my interest while others dragged. It's dense and sometimes wordy, but could also be moving and I learned a lot of cool things. I wouldn't recommend this to a new nonfiction reader, but if you're already interested then it's worth picking up.
September 6, 2018
Le prime pagine di Atlantico bastano per mostrarci l’impresa titanica che l’autore vuole affrontare. Per raccontarci dell’Oceano Atlantico da un punto di vista geografico e antropico, Simon Winchester arriva a scomodare addirittura il Bardo: infatti, è solo grazie a Shakespeare che riesce a trovare una cornice adatta ad accogliere il suo immenso lavoro. Si tratta di una celebre pagina dell’As you like it del Bardo in cui la vita dell’uomo viene ripartita e raccontata in sette grandi età: «Prima, l'infante che miagola e vomita in braccio alla nutrice. Lo scolaro poi, piagnucoloso, la sua brava cartella, la faccia rilucente nel mattino, che assai malvolentieri striscia verso la scuola a passo di lumaca. E poi l'innamorato, che ti sospira come una fornace, e in tasca una ballata tutta lacrime sopra le ciglia della sua adorata. Poi, un soldato, armato dei moccoli più strambi, un leopardo baffuto geloso dell'onore, lesto di mano, pronto a veder rosso, che va a cercar la bubbola della reputazione persino sulla bocca d'un obice. E poi il giudice, con un bel ventre tondo, farcito di capponi, occhio severo, barba ritagliata a regola d'arte, gonfio di sentenze e di luoghi comuni: e in questo modo recita la sua parte. L'età sesta ti muta l'uomo in magro pantalone in ciabatte, le lenti al naso, la borsa sul fianco, e quelle braghe usate da ragazzo, ben tenute ma ormai spaziose come il mondo per i suoi stinchi rattrappiti, e il suo vocione da maschiaccio che ridiventa un falsetto infantile, un suono fesso e fischiante. L'ultima scena infine, a chiuder questa storia strana, piena di eventi, è la seconda infanzia, il mero oblio, senza denti, senz'occhi o gusto, senza niente».
É così che Winchester prova ad abbracciare l’Oceano e la sua storia, a cominciare da 195 milioni di anni fa, quando Pangea inizia ad aprirsi e Panthalassa (l’unico elemento acqueo del globo) si infila lentamente tra la futura Europa e la futura America. Dopo milioni di anni di eruzioni vulcaniche, assestamenti violenti, terremoti, lava e quant’altro comincerà a delinearsi una prima forma di Oceano Atlantico.
In questo modo comincia a legarsi inevitabilmente la storia dell’uomo a quella dell’Oceano più percorso al mondo. Leggiamo delle allusioni mitologiche al gran mare che si apre oltre le colonne d’Ercole e delle prime esplorazioni atlantiche dei Fenici, delle straordinarie imprese dei Vichinghi e dei Norreni e il loro approdo, a bordo di minuscole imbarcazioni chiamate knaar, nel nord di quel continente che, solo secoli dopo, Colombo avrebbe pensato di scoprire per primo (in realtà, pare, fu Leif Erikson, islandese, ad approdare per primo sulle coste di Terranova).
Leggere gli aneddoti che cita Winchester lascia tramortiti e in perenne stato di angoscia: l’uomo altro non è che un’inezia, una minima parte della vita di questa immensa distesa d’acqua. Anche perché l’Oceano di per sé, e soprattutto l’Atlantico, ci viene dipinto come sinonimo di turbolenza, di tempesta, di difficoltà, di imprese fallite, di potenza naturale, di imperscrutabilità. Di costante impossibilità dell’uomo di dominare una tale forza naturale. Tuttavia, è stato proprio l’Atlantico a dare il via alle ambizioni di esploratori, scienziati, guerrieri, poeti, pescatori e marinai, spingendoli al di là del limite conosciuto.
Dai Fenici che navigarono fino al Marocco per pescare i murici, da cui ricavavano la porpora, ai Vichinghi, che scoprirono Terranova prima di tutti; dai portoghesi che arrivarono per primi in America Centrale e Meridionale, ai primi vascelli a vapore e ai primi U-Boot; dalle navi piene di pirati a quelle piene di schiavi; dalle prime battaglie tra navi corazzate, alle traversate in solitario; dal Titanic all’uragano Katrina. Come ogni terra emersa, anche l’Atlantico è sfondo di morte come è sfondo di vita. Così dalle esplorazioni e dalle guerre si passa ai commerci, alle comunicazioni, alle scoperte, per approdare infine alla devastazione dell’inquinamento, alla pesca distruttiva, alla scomparsa di intere specie ittiche, allo scioglimento dei ghiacci, all’incubo del petrolio.
Questo e molto di più affronta Winchester nel suo meraviglioso affresco che combina assieme il suo personale amore per l’Oceano Atlantico con la storia dell’uomo, inestricabilmente legata ad esso.
Moltissimi aneddoti, decine e decine di storie, che convergono tutte verso la più importante, l’ultima. Quella che è già cominciata, che è tutt’ora in corso e che lo sarà per circa 200 milioni di anni ancora: perché tutti gli tsunami, tutti gli uragani, tutte le eruzioni, non sono che un’inezia di fronte a quello che succederà quando inevitabilmente i continenti oggi divisi torneranno ad essere un tutt’uno. Ci saranno spostamenti tettonici chilometrici e devastanti. Questo avverrà a prescindere dalla volontà dell'uomo: la terra ha una data di scadenza anche tralasciando le nefandezze che l’umanità riversa in natura e nell’Oceano in particolare. Le tempeste aumentano di intensità e forza, le correnti cambiano di percorso in maniera autonoma: tutto ci spinge a pensare che questo cambiamento sia inevitabile. Indubbiamente questa non è una giustificazione per tutto ciò che di malsano l’uomo compie nei confronti dell’habitat in cui vive, ma se questo acceleri il processo ciclico che porterà tutto allo stato iniziale è materia di dibattito incessante.
É così che Winchester prova ad abbracciare l’Oceano e la sua storia, a cominciare da 195 milioni di anni fa, quando Pangea inizia ad aprirsi e Panthalassa (l’unico elemento acqueo del globo) si infila lentamente tra la futura Europa e la futura America. Dopo milioni di anni di eruzioni vulcaniche, assestamenti violenti, terremoti, lava e quant’altro comincerà a delinearsi una prima forma di Oceano Atlantico.
In questo modo comincia a legarsi inevitabilmente la storia dell’uomo a quella dell’Oceano più percorso al mondo. Leggiamo delle allusioni mitologiche al gran mare che si apre oltre le colonne d’Ercole e delle prime esplorazioni atlantiche dei Fenici, delle straordinarie imprese dei Vichinghi e dei Norreni e il loro approdo, a bordo di minuscole imbarcazioni chiamate knaar, nel nord di quel continente che, solo secoli dopo, Colombo avrebbe pensato di scoprire per primo (in realtà, pare, fu Leif Erikson, islandese, ad approdare per primo sulle coste di Terranova).
Leggere gli aneddoti che cita Winchester lascia tramortiti e in perenne stato di angoscia: l’uomo altro non è che un’inezia, una minima parte della vita di questa immensa distesa d’acqua. Anche perché l’Oceano di per sé, e soprattutto l’Atlantico, ci viene dipinto come sinonimo di turbolenza, di tempesta, di difficoltà, di imprese fallite, di potenza naturale, di imperscrutabilità. Di costante impossibilità dell’uomo di dominare una tale forza naturale. Tuttavia, è stato proprio l’Atlantico a dare il via alle ambizioni di esploratori, scienziati, guerrieri, poeti, pescatori e marinai, spingendoli al di là del limite conosciuto.
Dai Fenici che navigarono fino al Marocco per pescare i murici, da cui ricavavano la porpora, ai Vichinghi, che scoprirono Terranova prima di tutti; dai portoghesi che arrivarono per primi in America Centrale e Meridionale, ai primi vascelli a vapore e ai primi U-Boot; dalle navi piene di pirati a quelle piene di schiavi; dalle prime battaglie tra navi corazzate, alle traversate in solitario; dal Titanic all’uragano Katrina. Come ogni terra emersa, anche l’Atlantico è sfondo di morte come è sfondo di vita. Così dalle esplorazioni e dalle guerre si passa ai commerci, alle comunicazioni, alle scoperte, per approdare infine alla devastazione dell’inquinamento, alla pesca distruttiva, alla scomparsa di intere specie ittiche, allo scioglimento dei ghiacci, all’incubo del petrolio.
Questo e molto di più affronta Winchester nel suo meraviglioso affresco che combina assieme il suo personale amore per l’Oceano Atlantico con la storia dell’uomo, inestricabilmente legata ad esso.
Moltissimi aneddoti, decine e decine di storie, che convergono tutte verso la più importante, l’ultima. Quella che è già cominciata, che è tutt’ora in corso e che lo sarà per circa 200 milioni di anni ancora: perché tutti gli tsunami, tutti gli uragani, tutte le eruzioni, non sono che un’inezia di fronte a quello che succederà quando inevitabilmente i continenti oggi divisi torneranno ad essere un tutt’uno. Ci saranno spostamenti tettonici chilometrici e devastanti. Questo avverrà a prescindere dalla volontà dell'uomo: la terra ha una data di scadenza anche tralasciando le nefandezze che l’umanità riversa in natura e nell’Oceano in particolare. Le tempeste aumentano di intensità e forza, le correnti cambiano di percorso in maniera autonoma: tutto ci spinge a pensare che questo cambiamento sia inevitabile. Indubbiamente questa non è una giustificazione per tutto ciò che di malsano l’uomo compie nei confronti dell’habitat in cui vive, ma se questo acceleri il processo ciclico che porterà tutto allo stato iniziale è materia di dibattito incessante.
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