The Atlantic (Seas in History) - Hardcover

Butel, Paul

Hardcover

ISBN 10: 0415106907 ISBN 13: 9780415106900

Publisher: Routledge, 1999

Synopsis

From Antiquity to modern times, the Atlantic has been the subject of myths and legends. The Atlantic by Paul Butel offers a global history of the ocean encompassing the exploits of adventurers, Vikings, explorers such as Christopher Columbus, emigrants, fishermen, and modern traders. The book also highlights the importance of the growth of ports such as New York and Liverpool and the battles of the Atlantic in the world wars of the twentieth century.
The author offers an examination of the legends of the ocean, beginning with the Phoenicians and Carthaginians navigating beyong the Pillars of Hercules, and details the exploitation and power struggles of the Atlantic through the centuries.
The book surveys the important events in the Atlantic's rich history and comprehensively analyses the changing fortunes of sea-going nations, including Britain, the United States and Germany.

About this title

About the Author

Paul Butel

Reviews

To modern legatees of the voyages of discovery, the Atlantic is just a pond crossed quickly by jetliner, somewhat slower by the container ships that connect prosperous nations. Gazing past the Pillars of Hercules, the ancients (except for intrepid Phoenicians) recoiled from a forbidding ocean; not so the Vikings, who established a few colonies on its northern islands. These are among the topics Butel, a French historian, explores in this survey of the human history of the Atlantic Ocean. Drawing on seemingly encyclopedic knowledge about the Atlantic, Butel composes a comprehensible popular work covering all aspects of Atlantic maritime transportation--ship technology, weather patterns, geography, particular voyages, wars, and commerce--but of all these topics, commerce dominates his narrative. It alone made crossing the Atlantic worthwhile: the Spanish reaped an immediate payoff in conquered silver, then followed the returns from the English plantation economies and the African slave trade on which they relied; and the Dutch and French elbowed in as best they could. A wide-angle perspective most useful in large collections. Gilbert Taylor

Butel (modern history, Universit? Michel de Montaigne, Bordeaux) has written a global history of the Atlantic Ocean from the beginning of recorded history through the present. Seas and oceans, Butel argues in this interesting book, have had an immense cultural influence on civilizations. Beginning with early sea legends and realities that arose before the Spanish and Portuguese explorations in the 15th century, he weaves a tapestry of geographers and explorers who helped shape the history and development of Atlantic navigation. Chapters chart a succession of explorers, economic considerations, and national rivalries. Heavily footnoted (with a bibliography containing both English and French sources), this attempt at global history wonderfully details the history of the Atlantic up through the 18th century. (Those looking for a detailed history of the Atlantic for the last two centuries must look elsewhere: here they get only a chapter each.) Recommended for academic and specialized maritime libraries.AHarold N. Boyer, Springfield P.L., PA
Copyright 1999 Reed Business Information, Inc.

Edition details

• Publisher: Routledge
• Publication date: 1999
• Language: English
• ISBN 10: 0415106907
• ISBN 13: 9780415106900
• Binding: Hardcover
• Edition number: 1
• Number of pages: 346