The Boundless Sea: A Human History of the Oceans - Hardcover

Abulafia, David

Hardcover

ISBN 10: 1846145082 ISBN 13: 9781846145087

Publisher: Allen Lane, 2019

Synopsis

A SUNDAY TIMES, FINANCIAL TIMES, THE TIMES AND BBC HISTORY MAGAZINE BOOK OF THE YEAR

From the award-winning author of The Great Sea, a magnificent new global history of the oceans and of humankind's relationship with the sea

For most of human history, the seas and oceans have been the main means of long-distance trade and communication between peoples - for the spread of ideas and religion as well as commerce. This book traces the history of human movement and interaction around and across the world's greatest bodies of water, charting our relationship with the oceans from the time of the first voyagers. David Abulafia begins with the earliest of seafaring societies - the Polynesians of the Pacific, the possessors of intuitive navigational skills long before the invention of the compass, who by the first century were trading between their far-flung islands. By the seventh century, trading routes stretched from the coasts of Arabia and Africa to southern China and Japan, bringing together the Indian Ocean and the western Pacific and linking half the world through the international spice trade. In the Atlantic, centuries before the little kingdom of Portugal carved out its powerful, seaborne empire, many peoples sought new lands across the sea - the Bretons, the Frisians and, most notably, the Vikings, now known to be the first Europeans to reach North America. As Portuguese supremacy dwindled in the late sixteenth century, the Spanish, the Dutch and then the British each successively ruled the waves.
Following merchants, explorers, pirates, cartographers and travellers in their quests for spices, gold, ivory, slaves, lands for settlement and knowledge of what lay beyond, Abulafia has created an extraordinary narrative of humanity and the oceans. From the earliest forays of peoples in hand-hewn canoes through uncharted waters to the routes now taken daily by supertankers in their thousands, The Boundless Sea shows how maritime networks came to form a continuum of interaction and interconnection across the globe: 90 per cent of global trade is still conducted by sea. This is history of the grandest scale and scope, and from a bracingly different perspective - not, as in most global histories, from the land, but from the boundless seas.

About this title

Review:

In its mixture of supreme storytelling, beautifully drawn characters, fearless scope and rigorous scholarship, it ranks with the very best of world histories. ... From Morocco to Hawaii, Australia to the Persian Gulf, he delivers an intense and thrilling tour de force, filled with pirates, kings, scholars, monsters, conquerors, sailors, merchants, adventurers, slavers and slaves, taking us from the age of triremes and longships, hulks and cogs, dhows and junks, galleons and dreadnoughts, all the way up to the container ship.

(Simon Sebag-Montefiore Daily Telegraph)

His grasp of the material is not so much encyclopaedic as breathtaking ... this is a tour de force. Writing history on this scale is challenging and enormously impressive; the author deserves applause for a magisterial achievement.

(Peter Frankopan Sunday Times)

The Boundless Sea is a work of immense scholarship, a forensic tribute to human enterprise. ... After reading this book your horizons will be wonderfully expanded, and you'll be as eager as the Ancient Mariner to retell its stories... Abulafia's masterpiece has the potential to alter the way we understand the human story and our place within it.

(Horatio Clare Spectator)

Nothing less than a history of humanity written from the perspective of the sea

(Jerry Brotton Financial Times)

David Abulafia's 2011 The Great Sea: A Human History of the Mediterranean set a standard in Middle Sea scholarship, charting a course from 22,000 BC to today, combining careful detail with epic sweep. This dazzlingly ambitious companion-piece looks far beyond the Strait and Suez, towards seaways older than those of Odysseus but less often explored. ... Readers might reasonably anticipate dull determinism, or boundless angst, but these shallows are avoided by shrewd sensitivity, and the sheer majesty of his subject. ... The Boundless Sea offers depth, zooming from ninth century steering to mirage-humped horizons. ... The sea will always spring surprises, but we plainly need to reimagine our coasts. The Boundless Sea reminds us brilliantly of once brand-new landfalls - times when endless oceans glittered with primordial possibilities. (Derek Turner Irish Times)

Feast on the magnificent bounty that Abulafia has to offer.

(Gerard DeGroot The Times)

David Abulafia's The Boundless Sea ... is a majestic and beautifully illustrated account of human interaction with the sea, ranging from the Polynesians of the Pacific in the 1st century to the supertankers and vast cruise ships of our own times. Abulafia writes fluently and with deep humanity across the vast expanse of his subject. (Ruth Scurr Spectator Books of the Year)

Cast aside what you think you know about maritime history. In this huge study of the oceans, David Abulafia ... offers a big collection of seafaring stories told with simple elegance. (Gerard DeGroot The Times Books of the Year)

It is hard to do justice to the historical sweep and richness of detail of Abulafia's latest epic work of maritime scholarship... this books is nothing less than a human history of humanity written from the perspective of the oceans. (Tom Barber Financial Times Books of the Year)

a dazzling history of the oceans ... His sheer breadth is staggering: one moment you're reading about the journeys of Ferdinand Magellan, the next you're onto the rise of cruise liners and container ships. Abulafia handles his vast material with the skill of a master mariner, and his book is one of the year's most bracing and surprising voyages. (Dominic Sandbrook Sunday Times Books of the Year)

About the Author:

David Abulafia is Emeritus Professor of Mediterranean History at the University of Cambridge, a Fellow of Gonville and Caius College and a former Chairman of the Cambridge History Faculty. His previous books include Frederick II, The Western Mediterranean Kingdoms and The Great Sea, which has been translated into a dozen languages. He is a member of the Academia Europaea, and in 2003 was made Commendatore dell'Ordine della Stella della Solidarietà Italiana in recognition of his work on Italian and Mediterranean history.

About this edition

• Publisher: Allen Lane
• Publication date: 2019
• ISBN 10: 1846145082
• ISBN 13: 9781846145087
• Binding: Hardcover
• Number of pages: 1088