Book Log 2011 #38: Atlantic by Simon Winchester


In this book, Winchester attempts a biography of the Atlantic Ocean, starting at its formation in the earliest stages of the planet to its future destruction by the same forces that gave it life. In between, he talks about the "Great Sea Battles, Heroic Discoveries, Titanic Storms, and a Vast Ocean of a Million Stories" promised by the subtitle.

He frames the discussion using Shakespeare's seven ages of man from As You Like It, which allows him to follow chronology where appropriate but discuss other facets - such as sea battles and Atlantic-inspired art - as specific subjects.

This works, for the most part, but the problem with such a broad topic is that choices have to be made for what gets mentioned and what doesn't, and those choices aren't always the ones I'd make. For example, the art chapter spends a great deal of time talking about coastal architecture without mentioning Manueline  architecture, a style influenced greatly by Portugal's exploration of the Atlantic and the oceans beyond. Similar examples can be found in each chapter.

I'm also not a fan of Winchester's pessimism towards the survival of mankind. He seems to think we'll exit the stage well before the Atlantic is crushed between land masses, and while I do think we'll have moved on by then, I tend to think we'll last longer on Earth and have found somewhere else to go by this time. Winchester seems to think we'll go the way of the dodo, or at least that was my read.

But in the main, it's usually engaging and worth a read, though some sections could be bypassed if not of interest, as the seven ages of man set-up allows for some compartmentalization.