POSTED: 29 JULY 2010

Exploring mankind's relationship with a vast, dangerous ocean*

Simon Winchester, Atlantic: A Vast Ocean of a Million Stories

Harper Collins | 400pp hardback | $59.99 | Published August 2010

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.

Travelling by small sailing craft, container ship and general cargo vessel, Simon Winchester journeyed around the edges and across the vast expanse of the ocean to report from the places that encapsulate its most fascinating stories.

At the core of his book, Atlantic: A Vast Ocean of a Million Stories, is the tale of mankind’s complex relationship with this immense sea, which stretches for 9000 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.

Winchester 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.