Author:David Abulafia
WINNER OF THE WOLFSON HISTORY PRIZE 2020
A SUNDAY TIMES, FINANCIAL TIMES, THE TIMES AND BBC HISTORY MAGAZINE BOOK OF THE YEAR
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
—— William Dalrymple , The Spectator Books of the YearNothing less than a history of humanity written from the perspective of the sea
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.
—— Hugh Johnson , Daily MailPeople sometimes ask me if I’ve ever considered running for office. My answer is usually, “Sober? No.” All it would take is to recall what my grandfather went through in the first four months of his presidency. No president in history – particularly one who came in without having been briefed by his predecessor – has faced such monumental decisions. A.J. Baime has put a spotlight on those four months, recounting them faithfully and with heart, so that you come away with not only a sense of history, but a sense of the man, Harry Truman, as well. As Grandpa himself said a few years later, “It’s hell to be President of the Greatest Most Powerful Nation on Earth”.
—— CLIFFORD TRUMAN DANIEL, Harry S. Truman's grandson.An attractive tale for fans of both presidential and WWII history . . . Baime opens a clear . . . window on a pivotal moment in history.
—— PUBLISHERS WEEKLYBaime is a master story-teller who appears to have invented a time machine. His carefully crafted narrative transports the reader back in time . . . each sentence is carefully constructed and colourfully packed with details that makes Harry Truman and this period in history come alive. The Accidental President reads more like a captivating novel than non-fiction.
—— PRESIDENTIALREVIEW.COMA celebration of picture books and their artists to spark your own childhood memories
—— Evening StandardUrgent and powerful… a fascinating window into 20th-century Chinese history.
—— Irish IndependentA riveting and action-packed story where it's hard not to be enthralled by the murky underworld of the Soongs — its numerous twists and turns are saturated with money, travel, history, corruption, treachery, risk, honour, glory, fear, deception, power, and politics.
—— J.P. O’Malley , Irish Sunday IndependentA rollicking ride.
—— Vaudine England , Literary ReviewA fascinating tale of the three Soong sisters who played a significant role in the making of 20th-century China…[told] with lacerating honesty.
—— Donal O'Donoghue , RTE GuideAn enjoyable take on China’s turbulent 20th-century history, seen through the revealing perspective of three women at the centre of power
—— Andrea Janku , BBC HistoryBig Sister, Little Sister, Red Sister is a gripping story of love, war, intrigue, bravery, glamour and betrayal, which takes us on a sweeping journey… a group biography that is by turns intimate and epic, Jung Chang reveals the lives of three extraordinary women who helped shape twentieth-century China.
—— Southern StarA story of love, war, intrigue, bravery, glamour and betrayal.
—— Asian Art Newspaper, *Books of the Year*[Chang’s] breathtaking new new triple biography restores these “tiger-willed” women to their extraordinarily complex humanity… As in her bestselling 1991 memoir Wild Swans, Chang uses a gripping and emotional personal story to draw Western readers into the history of China.
—— Helen Brown , Daily TelegraphThrilling.
—— Rachel Billington , Tablet, *Books of the Year*
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