Ocean
A History of the Atlantic Before Columbus
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Ocean
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Narrated by:
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Ben Eagle
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By:
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John Haywood
About this listen
John Haywood argues that the perception that Atlantic history begins with the first voyage of the celebrated Genoese navigator is a mistaken one, and that the seafaring and shipbuilding skills that enabled European global exploration and expansion did not arrive fully formed in the fifteenth century, but were learned over centuries and millennia in the Atlantic and its marginal seas. The pre-Columbian history of the Atlantic is the story of how Europeans learned to master the oceans. It is, therefore, key to understanding why it was Europeans, and not any of the world’s other seafaring peoples, who ‘discovered’ the world.
Ocean is informed by the author’s extensive travels in and around the Atlantic Ocean, crossing Newfoundland’s Grand Banks, the Sea of Darkness and the weed-covered Sargasso Sea to make landfall at locations as diverse as Vinland, Greenland, the Faroes and the Cape Verde Islands. Populated by a heterogeneous and multi-ethnic cast of seafarers, fishermen, monks, merchants and dreamers, this is an in-depth history of a neglected subject, fusing geology, geography, mythology, cosmology, developing maritime technologies and the early history of exploration to narrate an enthralling and intriguing story that lies at the very heart of Europe’s modern history and its relationship with the rest of the world. A history on a grand scale, Ocean offers the reader a feast of historical storytelling that will appeal to readers of David Abulafia, Simon Winchester and Michael Pye.©2024 John Haywood (P)2024 Head of Zeus
What listeners say about Ocean
Average Customer RatingsReviews - Please select the tabs below to change the source of reviews.
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Overall3 out of 5 stars
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Performance3 out of 5 stars
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Story2 out of 5 stars
- S.Attenborough
- 03-11-2024
Fact Checking
Disappointing that Australian Aboriginal people who represent the oldest continuous civilisation in the world barely get a mention when it comes to boat building…except for one factually incorrect throw away line which almost makes one believe that the author is even too embarrassed to mention them!
The author states the ancestors came here 42,000 years ago ‘they only had to cross 90 kms of water’. Really?
Incorrect. Aboriginal people are known to have occupied mainland Australia for at least 65,000 years. It is widely accepted that this predates the modern human settlement of Europe and the Americas.
They came across large stretches of open sea in some kind of craft no doubt island hopping or whatever…but come via sea they did. It’s not important what type of craft but the fact that they did it is astonishing.
I appeal to the author to consider that - even though this is a book about the Atlantic- that if one speaks about boat building one would have to consider the above. Neglect, silence or the misuse of well known facts can have a detrimental affect on how these remarkable people are seen by your audience.
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