Atlantic: Great Sea Battles, Heroic Discoveries, Titanic Storms, & a Vast Ocean of a Million Stories

Summary (from the publisher): Blending history and anecdote, geography and reminiscence, science and exposition, the New York Times bestselling author of Krakatoa tells the breathtaking saga of the magnificent Atlantic Ocean, setting it against the backdrop of mankind's intellectual evolution

Until a thousand years ago, no humans ventured into the Atlantic or imagined traversing its vast infinity. But once the first daring mariners successfully navigated to far shores--whether it was the Vikings, the Irish, the Chinese, Christopher Columbus in the north, or the Portuguese and the Spanish in the south--the Atlantic evolved in the world's growing consciousness of itself as an enclosed body of water bounded by the Americas to the West, and by Europe and Africa to the East. Atlantic is a biography of this immense space, of a sea which has defined and determined so much about the lives of the millions who live beside or near its tens of thousands of miles of coast.

The Atlantic has been central to the ambitions of explorers, scientists, and warriors, and it continues to affect our character, attitudes, and dreams. Poets to potentates, seers to sailors, fishermen to foresters--all have a relationship with this great body of blue-green sea and regard her as friend or foe, adversary or ally, depending on circumstance or fortune. Simon Winchester chronicles that relationship, making the Atlantic come vividly alive. Spanning from the earth's geological origins to the age of exploration, World War II battles to modern pollution, his narrative is epic and awe-inspiring.

Review: In this non-fiction work, Winchester attempts to chronicle the history of the Atlantic Ocean beginning with its formation with the separation of the super continent Pangea. Rather than a biography of the ocean, this book is more a chronicle of human interaction with the ocean across the centuries. Winchester (supposedly) attempts to organize the book around the seven stages of a man's life as outlined by William Shakespeare in As You Like It.
 

While this book looked incredibly interesting, and did hold some interesting sections, I think Winchester took on more than he could handle. This book struck me more as an encyclopedia or a reference than anything else. Two pages on the history of pirates? A few on the many oil spills and environmental hazards for the ocean? There was no way anyone could successfully tackle so many disparate subjects in an in depth or detailed fashion. In other words, there were at least 50 subjects he touched on that anyone could (and has) written an individual book about.
 

I was also not a huge fan of the structure of this book or the narrative voice. It was mostly organized chronologically, but I found the whole Shakespeare analogy to determine the breakdown of chapters rather artificial and forced. And I was not a fan of the author's frequent personal anecdotes, which did not fit chronologically and were sometimes not overwhelmingly inspiring.
 

In this book's defense, I think this probably would be best read in small segments or just browed through, rather than trying to tackle it all at once. And while I found it relatively unorganized and scattered, I don't know that I could suggest a better method of organization for such a vast topic. I did learn a few things, such as the previous belief that based on weight and compression of water, objects dropped in the ocean didn't sink to the ocean floor but hovered at varying levels. Yet most that I found interesting were just glossed over since Winchester did not have time to explore anything in depth.
 

Stars: 3