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    Pacific: The Ocean of the Future
    Unavailable
    Pacific: The Ocean of the Future
    Unavailable
    Pacific: The Ocean of the Future
    Ebook630 pages9 hours

    Pacific: The Ocean of the Future

    By Simon Winchester

    4/5

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    About this ebook

    Travelling the circumference of the truly gigantic Pacific, Simon Winchester tells the story of the world’s largest body of water, and – in matters economic, political and military – the ocean of the future.

    The Pacific is a world of tsunamis and Magellan, of the Bounty mutiny and the Boeing Company. It is the stuff of the towering Captain Cook and his wide-ranging network of exploring voyages, Robert Louis Stevenson and Admiral Halsey. It is the place of Paul Gauguin and the explosion of the largest-ever American atomic bomb, on Bikini atoll, in 1951. It has an astonishing recent past, an uncertain present and a hugely important future.

    The ocean and its peoples are the new lifeblood, fizz and thrill of America – which draws so many of its minds and so much of its manners from the sea – while the inexorable rise of the ancient center of the world, China, is a fixating fascination. The presence of rogue states – North Korea most notoriously today – suggest that the focus of the responsible world is shifting away from the conventional post-war obsessions with Europe and the Middle East, and towards a new set of urgencies. Navigating the newly evolving patterns of commerce and trade, the world’s most violent weather and the fascinating histories, problems and potentials of the many Pacific states, Simon Winchester’s thrilling journey is a grand depiction of the future ocean.

    LanguageEnglish
    PublisherHarperCollins UK
    Release dateOct 22, 2015
    ISBN9780007550784
    Unavailable
    Pacific: The Ocean of the Future
    Author

    Simon Winchester

    Simon Winchester is the bestselling author of Atlantic, The Man Who Loved China, A Crack in the Edge of the World, Krakatoa, The Map That Changed the World, The Surgeon of Crowthorne (The Professor and the Madman), The Fracture Zone, Outposts and Korea, among many other titles. In 2006 he was awarded the OBE. He lives in western Massachusetts and New York City.

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    Reviews for Pacific

    4/5

    122 ratings13 reviews

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    • 2/5
      Sorry to have to say but this is a collection of disjointed essays that fail to engage. Had the distinct feeling that this was the author just churning out another book on a subject (and sub-subjects) he's covered before. Other reviewers cover the chapter contents if you want to persevere. A book to take out of the library, not worth purchasing as I doubt anyone would pick it up for a second read.
    • 2/5
      If you come to this expecting a "biography of the ocean" like Winchester did for the Atlantic, you will be disappointed. It's a series of basically stand-alone chapters starting in 1950.To me, the chapters just didn't cohere. There is a compelling story about the use of islands for nuclear testing, secret island bases, and mistreatment of indigineous populations. (If taken together with similar material material from Outposts and expanded into a book, this alone would make for excellent albeit saddening journalism.) But then there's a chapter about transistor radios. And one about surfing. And one about Korea. To me, Winchester's trademark mix of history and storytelling (often enhanced with deep explanations of geology) is missing. His "10 singular events" might have each made an interesting magazine essay, but together they just don't combine to tell any kind of coherent story.
    • 4/5
      In his inimitable way, Simon Winchester sets out to prove the vast importance of the Pacific Ocean, not only in the past and present, but in our future. For the most part, he succeeds. The size of the Pacific Ocean is immense and almost beyond our reckoning. It is the source of the world's weather and has survived atomic bombs, transistors, and the abysmal treatment of its native peoples. Winchester takes us on a mesmerizing journey from one end of the Pacific to the other, from east to west and north to south, with lots of stops on tiny islands and archipelagos along the way.Winchester has been one of my favorite non-fiction writers since his unforgettable The Professor and the Madman: A Tale of Murder, Insanity, and the Making of the Oxford English Dictionary. He's opened my eyes to many things and encouraged me to read deeper into many of the subjects he brings to light. However, I have to admit that I am concerned about an error I found while reading this particular book. In it, Winchester talks about traveling up the Mississippi River past the city of Des Moines. I did some research in an attempt to discover if my memory had blown a fuse, but it hadn't. Des Moines is certainly not on the banks of the Mississippi River between Hannibal and St. Louis, Missouri, as stated in his book, and that's what has me concerned. If a simple yet glaring mistake like that can make its way to the final edition of the published book, how many other errors made it through, too? And if there are errors in this book, what about his others? One city in the wrong place can cause so much harm.
    • 4/5
      This book was a selection for the monthly nonfiction read at the North Bellmore Public Library on Long Island This was well received. There are lot of things covered in this book and many are quite fascinating and not often covered by substantial books. Outside the wide geographic coherence of the Pacific Ocean, there is no thread that pulls everything together and there is less on South America. Winchester, though, is an engaging writer as he darts about this vast territory and found items to arrest our attention.
    • 5/5
      There is an ocean of politics in this book, bombing politics, electronics politics, surfing politics, international relations politics, global warming politics, Australian politics, and deep sea politics, (in the Pacific naturally.) Winchester goes into a fairly deep discussion on each topic, some passionately so, which gives the reader a good understanding even if they have not read about the subject before. In most chapters he provides a firsthand account and I really wish that they were longer than a couple of sentences as they bring a sense of realism to the subject.Free review copy.
    • 4/5
      As always, Simon Winchester has created a comprehensive and compelling history, and the man can tell a story! The subtitle of this book covers just some of the topics he manages to relate to this vast body of water, over time. History, politics, military, culture, entertainment, sports - it's all there. Winchester is so good at what he does. And I do love listening to him read to me (I listened to the audiobook, unabridged)
    • 4/5
      In this outing, Winchester has attempted a history of the Pacific Ocean – a vast undertaking, even given that he has limited himself to events since 1950. In the book’s lengthy introduction, he explains how he eventually settled on the approach he has taken, focusing on a different aspect of Pacific-related history in each chapter. Much better, I think we can all agree, than a chronological account that would necessarily tangle hundreds of disparate story threads into an unintelligible knot.With every chapter devoted to a different aspect of the history of the Pacific ocean, I suspect many readers will find this an uneven read: it’s hard to imagine a reader who’s equally as interested in the history of U.S. atomic testing (chapter 1) and the semiconductor revolution (chapter 2), the evolution of surfing (chapter 3) and little-known chapters of the Korean conflict (chapter 4), the fate of the RMS Queen Elizabeth (chapter 5) and supercyclones (chapter 6), wacky Emperial politics (Chapter 7) and undersea hot spots (chapter 8), the perils of climate change (chapter 9) and geopolitical squabbling over international waters (chapter 10). (All of the aforementioned topics, by the way, are foreshadowed in the book’s subtitle – “Silicon Chips and Surboards, Coral Reefs and Atom Bombs, Brutal Dictators, Fading Empires, and the Coming Collision of the World’s Superpowers” – so at least you can’t say you weren’t warned!)Having said that, Winchester’s done his usual adept job of stuffing every chapter to the brim with obscure but entertaining bits of history, science, and politics – not entirely unexpected, given that obscure history is Winchester’s specialty. (This is the same guy who wrote “The Professor and the Madman,” about a mental patient’s contributions to the first dictionary, and “The Map That Changed the World,” about an obscure mining engineer who created the first geological map.) I’m fairly knowledgeable when it comes to history and world events, but many of the tales recounted in these chapters were new to me – which, frankly, is why I keep reading Winchester's canon. Some of the author's anecdotes are, one could argue, deservedly obscure; many, however, provoke fascination, astonishment, enlightenment, and/or thoughtful reflection. In summary, this book reminded me of why it’s important to read history. Whether you bother to read that whole chapter on surfing or skip straight to the atomic testing, we should all be grateful there are historians like Winchester out there, working their hardest to remind us that: (1) what we learn in school is maybe 5% of what actually happened; (2) those who don’t take the time to learn from the mistakes of history inevitably repeat the same mistakes; and (3) every organism and system on Earth is intractably interrelated – pluck on one string, and the resonance of that action has the potential to shake the whole world.
    • 4/5
      What a joy. Winchester has such good narrative skills, each part of the story just flows along with ease and interest maintained for pages. Suddenly you're 200 pages in and not tired! We may quarrel with some of his conclusions, but all the fun and interest is in getting there. History and analysis made easy.
    • 4/5
      Winchester presents a collage of stories all centering on a place, the Pacific. He doesn’t stand back from a subject, like a good journalist, but leaps into the stories, actively sharing his very strong opinions and worries. Accept that about him, know it, and then read Pacific. A lovely voyage of a book.
    • 4/5
      I listened to this book which was read by the author. Winchester has a great reading voice and it doesn't hurt that he has a lovely British accent. The writing is good as well so I enjoyed this nonfiction work.Winchester chooses ten news items set in or around the Pacific Ocean since January 1, 1950. Why that particular date? Well it is the date used by archaeologists in carbon dating to carbon date some object as being so many years Before Present.. Some date had to be picked and an international committee picked that date because it was before large scale testing of nuclear bombs which messed up the natural abundance of Carbon14, the isotope used in carbon dating. Winchester devotes a chapter to each item which range from the first nuclear bomb test in the Pacific to the explosion of Mount Pinatubo in the Phillippines with stops in between dealing with the first fibreglass surfboard, the discovery of large underwater mountain ranges, the bleaching of the Great Coral Reef off Australia and much more. His thesis is that the Pacific Ocean is where momentous things will take place in the future and that if mankind is to survive we should look at the example of the original people who lived there.Lots of stuff to think about and to learn.
    • 3/5
      A well written series of essays about the effect that the largest ocean has on the world overall. There is a mixtre of toics ranging from the sociological through the ecological and ending with a frightening chapter on the growth of Chinese Imperialism in the Pacific. This is not good news for the middle or small nation, and very bad news for the American of the twenty first century. Couple this information about China with actions of North Korea, and the inaction of China in the North Korea and USa standoff, and the way in which Donald Trump is being exploited by the two asian powers, Russia and China becomes obvious. Mr. Winchester's clear prose rolls along very readably, and though the use of non-colour maps sets one's teeth on edge, the result is a very informative book.
    • 5/5
      Wide ranging commentary on history and ecology of the ocean
    • 5/5
      Not the most beautifully written book ever, but oh my goodness, does he pack in the information. Some things I knew something about, as well as a whole heck of a lot I did not. Tis worth keeping as a resource for my next Pacific trip....Finished 02.09.19.