A titanic history of the three great oceans - the Atlantic, the Pacific and the Indian - and of mankind's relationship with the sea from the first voyagers to the present day
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 Solidariet Italiana in recognition of his work on Italian and Mediterranean history.
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.
*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.
*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.
*Spectator*
David Abulfia's The Boundless Sea is a hugely ambitious masterpiece
and quite rightly was the winner of this year's Wolfson prize for
history. It is a mighty thassolo-gasm and a triumphant successor to
his wonderful history of the Mediterranean. Remarkably, it manages
to stitch together and make accessible some diverse and often
intractable bits of ocean history, and is an astonishingly
accomplished work of both scholarly synthesis and fluent narrative
history.
*The Spectator Books of the Year*
Nothing less than a history of humanity written from the
perspective of the sea
*Financial Times*
He tells, in broad strokes and pin-sharp detail, the story of how
humanity has crossed the oceans to explore, trade and fight ... A
big book, full of surprises. I can open it at any page and be
engrossed in his incredible scholarship and vivid narrative.
*Daily Mail*
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