“Atlantic: Great Sea Battles, Heroic Discoveries, Titanic Storms, and a Vast Ocean of a Million Stories”, by Simon Winchester

 

512 pages, Harper, ISBN-13: 978-0061702587

Atlantic: Great Sea Battles, Heroic Discoveries, Titanic Storms, and a Vast Ocean of a Million Stories by Simon Winchester is not really a history book; rather, it is more of a 500+ page rumination on this storm-tossed and treacherous body of water that has served as the great connector of four continents. After having read The Boundless Sea: A Human History of the Oceans by David Abulafia (reviewed on May 23^rd, 2020), there wasn’t really any need to read another ocean-spanning history but, well, I did. Thus, I didn’t learn anything new, really, but the way in which Winchester presented his thoughts and musings was, nevertheless, interesting and even novel – sometimes even novelesque.

While Winchester focuses on the Atlantic Ocean as an almost living thing, it is humanity and its 164,000 year contact with the Atlantic that is his prime focus, starting in South Africa where humans first lived by the sea, eating shellfish, honing blades and decorating themselves with ocher. From there, our tale follows humanity as it tentatively leaves the relatively benign waters of the Mediterranean into the raucous wave-tossed Atlantic until the modern-day, when the waters of the Atlantic face, perhaps, unprecedented challenges after centuries of plying to-and-fro. Much is made of modern-day theories of global warming and all, although the author doesn’t harp too much on it, I think.

It is this, perhaps more than any other issue, that scuttles Atlantic somewhat, as Winchester seems to try to do too much; many, many ideas are covered, too superficially to really make a point, as Winchester jumps from topic to topic to give as overarching and complete a history as possible. Naturally, much is left out and many subjects glossed over; furthermore, these many subjects are sacrificed for no clear reason, with the Falklands War given a once-over while the peoples of the equatorial zone are given short-shrift. In his end-of-book acknowledgments, the author thanks his editor, but that editor should have done a better job in reigning Winchester in: his prose is never anything short of engaging, but at times it can be convoluted, as if my novelesque allusion from above took over his keyboard.

I suppose that when you write a leisurely accounting of the Atlantic from its creation 195 million years ago – when the supercontinent Pangaea began to break apart – to its eventual demise millions of years in the future – when the continents will have coalesced again – you are bound to get a little long-winded. So long as you take the author’s diversions with a grain of salt, Atlantic makes for an enjoyable read, if not as enlightening as one would wish.