David Abulafia is Emeritus Professor of Mediterranean History at Cambridge University. He is the author of many books, including The Great Sea: A Human History of the Mediterranean.
"With his global range of interest, commitment, knowledge and
scholarship, Abulafia is able to offer broad assessments that would
seem presumptuous from others. He is up to date in his scholarship,
notably on maritime archaeology, and able to range across cultures
in an inimitable fashion." -- Jeremy Black, Professor Emeritus of
History at the University of Exeter, Strategy Page"David Abulafia's
The Boundless Sea...bids fair to stand as definitive for many
years." -- John S. Sledge, The Northern Mariner / La marin du
nord"David Abulafia'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 thassologasm 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 Year 2020)"David Abulafia takes us on an epic journey
through the open (ocean) spaces of the earth, tracing
interconnections that brought together people, religions, and
civilizations . . .This is history on a grand scale that is
destined to become a standard work, written with a vivid clarity
that ranges from dodos to Aztec lords, Rapa Nui to cod fishers in
Newfoundland waters. By any standard, this is a brilliant
historical achievement that leaves one in awe of the author's
intellectual breadth." - Brian Fagan, Emeritus Professor of
Anthropology, University of California, Santa Barbara, and author
of Beyond the Blue Horizon: How the Earliest Mariner Unlocked the
Secrets of the Oceans"Were my caravel ever to be becalmed, lost in
some hot oceanic doldrum, I would hope to have David Abulafia's
grand book on hand, both to remind me of sailors who braved wilder
and colder seas in centuries past, thereby linking continents and
archipelagos and civilizations together -- but also in the hope
that just one of its vast multitude of pages might eventually catch
the faint breath of a tropical breeze, and waft me up onto a
shipping lane, and back onto my unwittingly abandoned course." -
Simon Winchester, author of Atlantic and Pacific, as well as The
Perfectionists: How Precision Engineers Created the Modern World"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." -
Simon Sebag-Montefiore, 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." - Peter Frankopan, 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." - Horatio Clare, Spectator"Nothing less than a history of
humanity written from the perspective of the sea." - Jerry Brotton,
Financial Times"The Boundless Sea reminds us brilliantly of once
brand-new landfalls - times when endless oceans glittered with
primordial possibilities." - Derek Turner, Irish Times"Feast on the
magnificent bounty that Abulafia has to offer." - Gerard DeGroot,
The TimesSpectator Books of the YearThe Times Books of the
YearFinancial Times Books of the YearSunday Times Books of the
Year"An unparalleled synthesis of human engagement with the oceans.
It will be a benchmark-- or perhaps the Plimsoll line -- against
which all future histories of planet Ocean will be judged." - David
Armitage, Times Literary Supplement
"Readers interested in maritime history are blessed with this
marvelous book from a scholar with a deft touch." - John Grady,
Naval Historical Foundation"This far-reaching book probes the
means, motives, and timelines of humanity as it crossed the oceans
and subsequently brought interdependence between geographically
distant nations. In doing so, the author offers a novel definition
of globalization: the time when the humans made ambitious sea
passages to the unknown, prompting the age of exploration and then
charted routes across the planet's vast waters." - Louis Norton,
Sea History Magazine
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