Atlantic: A Vast Ocean of a Million Stories
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Review
'Winchester unfolds this epic narrative with admirable simplicity: his prose style is conversational, and crackles with strange images. He marries even-handed scholarship with a gift for storytelling, neither dumbing down nor assuming any specific knowledge in his readership. This is from start to finish an enthralling book, and one that does justice to the magnitude of its subject' Edmund Gordon, Sunday Times
'Illuminating…a] wonderful, encyclopaedic book, pinpointing key moments in the narrative of an entire ocean and our relationship to it' Philip Hoare, Sunday Telegraph
‘[A] fabulous book’ Scotsman
‘An engaging account’ Mail on Sunday
‘[Winchester] is maddeningly gifted … a rollicking ride’ Washington Post
‘Enjoyable and richly informative’ Telegraph
Review
Reviews for Krakatoa
'Bracingly apocalyptic stuff: atmospheric, chock full of information and with a constantly escalating sense of pace and tension' Sunday Telegraph
‘Gripping. Takes us right to the heart of the worst natural disaster in recorded history. Winchester makes an excellent companion' Daily Telegraph
'Splendid. Lively, pacy, riveting. We learn a great deal and Winchester, storyteller to the core, wears his erudition lightly' Spectator
'Winchester proves himself not just a fine researcher and storyteller, but also a gifted stylist. He is the perfect narrator for such a catastrophe' Observer
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Most Helpful Customer Reviews
52 of 54 people found the following review helpful
Format:Hardcover
Simon Winchester adds to his growing ouevre and reputation with this enthralling and fascinating book. What could have been a daunting read is made simple and enjoyable by the author's chatty and good humoured style - you get the impression that he would be a fine companion over a pint or two. This is not just a geographic study though. Historical and social aspects of the ocean are admirably dealt with the voyages of discovery, slavery and environmental issues all being covered in some depth. There are many interesting and diverting stories in this book and all in all I can't recommend this book highly enough.
2 of 2 people found the following review helpful
Format:Hardcover|Amazon Verified Purchase
Simon Winchester is a story teller and a romantic - historical context, detail and colour brings this book to life. He dedicates the book to Able Seaman Angus Campbell McIntyre who was shipwrecked in 1942 on the notorious coast of Namibia in the South Atlantic in a failed attempt to rescue survivors from the SS Dunedin who had been similarly shipwrecked. Stories like this abound.
But he paints on a wider canvas to describe the importance of the Atlantic over the years - an ocean that with today's air travel does not have a high profile. For example parliamentary democracy as it is understood today was very much an Atlantic creation. No such institutions arose in Russia or China or Greece. The Icelandic Rock of Laws set the pattern for governance of the rest of the world, mimicked by the Faroe Islands, Norway, Sweden, Denmark and Britain.
He approaches the Atlantic from all angles, from its early exploration to pirates and the slave trade; from sea battles through the ages to commerce; from the laying of the transatlantic cable and air routes across the ocean to climate change, ocean currents and receding ice cap.
The question of what motivated men to make the dangerous voyage into the Atlantic before America was "discovered" is answered by fish and whales. He makes a convincing case that the Norsemen created settlements in Newfoundland and Labrador between 975 and 1020 AD. The allure of fish, and specifically cod, drew the Vikings and the Basques as well as John Cabot who named Newfoundland before the imperial claims made by Christopher Colombus in 1492.
The technical tribulations of the USS Niagra and HMS Agamemnon in laying 2,500 miles of transatlantic cable in 1857 is ascribed as the most ambitious construction project ever envisaged in the world. The visionary and financier behind the project was Cyrus Field. After only 15 days the cable succumbed to some unknown submarine malady and no further cable was laid until Brunel's Great Eastern in 1866. By 1900 there were 15 cables but then in 1901 Marconi successfully sent the first radio signal across the Atlantic. The "distance in time" across the Atlantic rapidly diminished.
The immense research and colourful stories makes it another of Winchester's compelling books.
But he paints on a wider canvas to describe the importance of the Atlantic over the years - an ocean that with today's air travel does not have a high profile. For example parliamentary democracy as it is understood today was very much an Atlantic creation. No such institutions arose in Russia or China or Greece. The Icelandic Rock of Laws set the pattern for governance of the rest of the world, mimicked by the Faroe Islands, Norway, Sweden, Denmark and Britain.
He approaches the Atlantic from all angles, from its early exploration to pirates and the slave trade; from sea battles through the ages to commerce; from the laying of the transatlantic cable and air routes across the ocean to climate change, ocean currents and receding ice cap.
The question of what motivated men to make the dangerous voyage into the Atlantic before America was "discovered" is answered by fish and whales. He makes a convincing case that the Norsemen created settlements in Newfoundland and Labrador between 975 and 1020 AD. The allure of fish, and specifically cod, drew the Vikings and the Basques as well as John Cabot who named Newfoundland before the imperial claims made by Christopher Colombus in 1492.
The technical tribulations of the USS Niagra and HMS Agamemnon in laying 2,500 miles of transatlantic cable in 1857 is ascribed as the most ambitious construction project ever envisaged in the world. The visionary and financier behind the project was Cyrus Field. After only 15 days the cable succumbed to some unknown submarine malady and no further cable was laid until Brunel's Great Eastern in 1866. By 1900 there were 15 cables but then in 1901 Marconi successfully sent the first radio signal across the Atlantic. The "distance in time" across the Atlantic rapidly diminished.
The immense research and colourful stories makes it another of Winchester's compelling books.
4 of 5 people found the following review helpful
Format:Hardcover
If you're anticipating something akin to Mark Kurlansky's "Cod" or "Salt" you might well be somewhat disappointed by Atlantic.
In Simon Winchester's favour, he is erudite, informed, and wherever it is he writes about, he has been there and seen for himself. But he's much harder work for the reader. One minute you're storming along with the wind in your sails, and the next you're becalmed in the doldrums with every page seeming to take an age.
The root problem is the structure. In any book of this type readers will find some bits fascinating, other bits dull. But there is no means of selecting your personal passage through this book, which lays itself out as a continuous narrative. It's worth repeating here that the subtitle is "A vast ocean of a million stories" just to underline how counter-intuitive this structure is. More perversely, the oblique chapter headings give no advance indication of their subject matter.
Two fellow readers agreed with me that the first chapter is the most frustrating hurdle of all. I was instantly intrigued by the opening passage recalling a liner voyage to Canada, only to find the social history cut short and morphing into geology and the shifting of tectonic plates - a subject that (for me) redefines slow and makes drying paint seem like watching a DVD on fast-forward.
I felt like a bar across the harbour mouth was in my way, with all the call and adventures of the ocean so tantalisingly close but withheld from me.
Persevere and Atlantic has its rewards - but it isn't the book it could be.
One unfortunate error (let's be fair, a volume this wide-ranging will have one or two) - Barra Head is not the northernmost tip of the Hebrides.
In Simon Winchester's favour, he is erudite, informed, and wherever it is he writes about, he has been there and seen for himself. But he's much harder work for the reader. One minute you're storming along with the wind in your sails, and the next you're becalmed in the doldrums with every page seeming to take an age.
The root problem is the structure. In any book of this type readers will find some bits fascinating, other bits dull. But there is no means of selecting your personal passage through this book, which lays itself out as a continuous narrative. It's worth repeating here that the subtitle is "A vast ocean of a million stories" just to underline how counter-intuitive this structure is. More perversely, the oblique chapter headings give no advance indication of their subject matter.
Two fellow readers agreed with me that the first chapter is the most frustrating hurdle of all. I was instantly intrigued by the opening passage recalling a liner voyage to Canada, only to find the social history cut short and morphing into geology and the shifting of tectonic plates - a subject that (for me) redefines slow and makes drying paint seem like watching a DVD on fast-forward.
I felt like a bar across the harbour mouth was in my way, with all the call and adventures of the ocean so tantalisingly close but withheld from me.
Persevere and Atlantic has its rewards - but it isn't the book it could be.
One unfortunate error (let's be fair, a volume this wide-ranging will have one or two) - Barra Head is not the northernmost tip of the Hebrides.
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Most Recent Customer Reviews
atlantic
wonderful writing, tremendous depth of research goes into Simon Winchester's books, and he produces a work of art that draws you in and which you can't put down.
Janda
Janda
Published 22 days ago by Frosty Forays
Worth reading...
..but not Simon Winchester's best. Well-written and constructed in the author's very capable style and often illuminating, but at times I felt the author was searching for... Read more
Published 1 month ago by C. D. Nash
Enlightening
Although some chapters are written better than others, none is less than highly readable and well informed. Read more
Published 5 months ago by Colonist
A patchy narrative
This is an interesting read, but many points are stretched almost to breaking point. The most tenuous connections to the Atlantic Ocean are exploited, and there are longueurs. Read more
Published 10 months ago by David Gordon
Big Ocean, Big Book
The Atlantic ocean is a large body of water and Atlantic by Simon Winchester is similarly large - it runs to over 400 pages of a large format paper back. Read more
Published 17 months ago by SCM
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